Class 1 brings a large price. Class 2 and 3 bring a lower price. We have a blend price figure, the price we get for all our milk. I contend that the farmer will not be satisfied with a two-pricing system because it is going to bring his top price down too low.

We feel it is not fair for labor to receive more for manufacturing and delivery, with no investment except a day's work, per quart of milk than the producer receives for producing this quart of milk and setting it on the platform of the handler. Again may I say keep in mind the investment in land, building, and cattle that the average dairy farm has.

The 2-price system will not work. It has been tried in the dairy industry. With price of class 1 and class 2, the farmer receives a blend price with much dissatisfaction among the farmers.

In closing, I would like to say we must move toward a farm program that will maintain the standard of living of the American farmer while not bankrupting our Government. Farm program and policies on the national level must have more of the thinking of the active farmer down the road that is familiar with the problems in his field, and the problems of his neighbor.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. Rex Long in the room? Mr. Long, you will follow Mr. Lifer.

STATEMENT OF DWIGHT LIFER, DANVILLE, OHIO

Mr. LIFER. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Dwight Lifer. I am a commercial turkey grower, breeder, hatcheryman, and processor.

We raise from 40,000 to 50,000 turkeys each year, keep over several thousand breeders, operate a 180,000-capacity hatchery, and have our own complete processing and freezing plant on our farm. We operate over 1,200 acres of land and raise beef cattle on the ranges when they are not being used for turkeys.

I have been active in the Ohio Turkey Association and at the present time I am a member of the board of directors of the Ohio Turkey Marketing Association and the Ohio Poultry Improvement Association.

During recent years the entire poultry industry has experienced its greatest economic expansion and has witnessed a dramatic improvement in both efficiency of production and efficiency of marketing, and yet during this period poultry prices have been consistently well below parity.

Last year we grew about 60 million turkeys in the United States, which is more than twice as many as the average yearly production during the 5-year period 1935–39. The crop, as you well know, was larger than the demand and the growers faced a market which would not pay the cost of production.

At our solicitation the Department of Agriculture bought a substantial quantity of the turkeys with the understanding and assurance of the leaders of the industry that production in 1953 would be cut back to the point where it would not exceed the probable demand. We of the industry agreed that unless such a cutback in production was made in 1953 we could not logically ask for any Government support.

The latest analysis of the situation this fall indicates that the industry has backed up its words with action and at the moment there seems to be no reason why turkeys should receive any support this year.

The situation that we are in today with some of our agricultural commodities we feel is largely traced to the lack of production controls and the retaining of price supports after surpluses have become overabundant.

Prices of poultry products generally during this period of expansion have been favorable to the efficitnt producer both lareg and small. This fact in itself is ample proof that the pountrymen quickly adjust their production operations to changes in supply and demand, and for this reason any continued attempt to interfere with prices through price fixing or the buying of surplus commodities would only reflect hurt to the efficient producers.

It is our feeling after our experiences of last year that it is the responsibility of the industry to adjust the supply of turkeys to the demand through continued improvement in production efficiency which will cut costs and enable farmers to adjust more easily to lower prices, if necessary. At the same time increased efficiency in marketing should yield to the farmer a bigger share of the consumer's dollar. Cutting costs of both production and marketing through improvement in efficiency will result in an expansion of our market and therefore call for a gradual expansion in production, but it is our responsibility as growers to keep this expansion within the bounds of market demands.

Perhaps the best illustration of how this works has been the development of the broiler industry during the last 20 years. It has gone through several periods when prices did not yield the cost of production.

Such periods have weeded out the inefficient producers and have generally been followed by lower costs of production and a substantial expansion of the industry. This 20-year-old industry will produce upwards of a billion broilers this year. Its growth can be attributed to its great improvement in efficiency in both production and marketing. We feel the same principles apply to the future of our turkey industry.

We are, therefore, opposed to any consideration of surplus removal or price supports unless our growers make the recommended cutback in production and prices still fail to meet the cost of production.

In maintaining our production within the limits of market demands, it is important that we have complete information on the statistics of the industry.

Congress during the last year met our request for added funds for this purpose and we are deeply appreciative of their cooperation.

Adequate marketing statistics combined with continued research on improvement and efficiency of production and efficiency of marketing are, in our opinion, the great needs of the agricultural industry of this country.

I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Lifer.

Mr. Rex Long, of Loudenville, Ohio, is next.

STATEMENT OF REX LONG, LOUDENVILLE, OHIO

Mr. LONG. Chairman Hope, members of the Agriculture Committee, my name is Rex Long. I am a dairy farmer in north-central Ohio. Unlike Mr. Lewis, who was the last dairy farmer up here who ably spoke on the broader aspects of the dairy industry, I would like to be specific about some points of the Federal milk marketing order in Cleveland, Ohio, as they affect me and 8,000 other dairy farmers, and affect us adversely.

Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act the Dairy Branch can propose an amendment to the Federal milk marketing order, but the producer cannot vote on the amendment. He must vote out the order itself. This is a cumbersome way of handling a milk marketing order. The order may have many good points and provide a floor to the milk price in any given milkshed which the producer wishes to retain.

I therefore recommend that an amendment to any Federal milk marketing order may be voted on separately by the producer in any given area instead of on the order as amended.

For example, the Dairy Branch recently initiated the supplydemand amendment in Cleveland, Ohio, which was very objectionable from a producer's standpoint. The dealer also opposed this amend

ment.

The Dairy Branch pushed this amendment through because the producers could not vote on the amendment without voting out the Federal order itself. The amendment was later modified; however, it will allow milk to fall 25 cents per hundredweight lower in the spring of 1954 than it did last spring.

Would it not be better for the producer to propose amendments rather than the Dairy Branch?

Ohio is a milk-deficit State; also, one which uses most of its fluid. milk. I therefore feel that the method of arriving at the price of milk per hundredweight at our principal Federal order cities in Ohio

is wrong.

The price or floor of an order is arrived at by taking the average price of 18 Midwest condensory or powder and butterfat prices, depending on which is the higher. So with fat and powder supported at 90-percent parity, this has been used for some time. Now fat and powder which are definitely class III milk are the basic part of pricing milk for our Ohio fluid milk market.

The Dairy Branch then adds a differential figure to the basic price to arrive at the price per hundredweight of milk. This differential should take in many economic factors but apparently does not, for last spring a dairy farmer had to work 3 hours to earn $1.

Therefore, I feel that the price of Ohio milk should be predicated on a fluid milk market rather than on the powder-fat basis of class III milk as at present. Also, the economic factors, employment, ability to buy, the cost of living scale, should all be taken into consideration in pricing milk to insure the producer a fair and steady income and insure the consumer a steady supply of fluid milk.

It has been proven that the lower retail cost of fluid milk does not increase consumption. I, therefore, feel that a more uniform price of milk is both desirable and fair to producer and consumer alike.

I recommend deleting the supply-demand amendment to the Cleveland, Ohio, order which was instituted by the Dairy Branch and is neither wanted or necessary.

I recommend that the 90-percent parity support of butterfat and milk be continued for the present time since the basic foodstuff and proteins making up a dairy ration are all supported at the present time. The self-help, long-range advertising program of the American Dairy Association will eventually increase the use of fluid milk, and together with State control measures, we in the dairy industry hope eventually to stand on our own feet.

Gentlemen, I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Long.

Is Mr. Dale Williams present?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Williams does not seem to be present at this time.

(The following statement was submitted by Mr. Williams :)

STATEMENT FROM DALE C. WILLIAMS, FARMER, DARKE COUNTY, OHIO

I wish to present the following points for the consideration of the committee. 1. We farmers have labored 20 years with the Congress in the establishment and improvement of our present farm programs. We are confident that they are sound and better for the Nation as a whole, and the farmer in particular, than any two-price system or other schemes such as taxing the producer to set up a fund to carry on a price-support program.

2. It has been my privilege to be a member of the Ohio AAA State Committee and the Ohio State PMA Committee, beginning on April 19, 1935, and ending July 18, 1952, when I resigned for reasons of health.

During this period of almost 20 years, as you know, many plans for bettering the farm programs were developed by the farmers and the farmer county and community AAA and PMA committees. These were all considered carefully at every level and many good suggestions were recommended to and adopted by the Congress.

The farm programs have never been static things; they have continually been alive and changes to meet new conditions have been constantly made. This will always be necessary. Our present farm programs are not outmoded temporary actions. They are up-to-date and quite capable of meeting any agricultural situation from a depression to war inflation.

3. At similar hearings in former years, the hearing committee often asked the farmer if a certain agricultural conservation program practice did not pay the farmer a profit. The answer to this certainly had to be yes for the simple reason that no practice would ever be included in the agricultural conservation program unless it was beneficial to the farm. Then the farmer was asked by the committee why, since the practice was profitable, the farmer should not pay for the practice himself. This is not a logical conclusion although it seems to be to some people. It is to be remembered that many things are profitable, but that everyone is not in a position to take advantage of them. Personally, I might suggest that all Congressmen purchase a million dollars worth of stock in General Motors, General Mills, Morgan & Co., Ford Motor Co., International Harvester, General Electric, or other profitable stocks. With this amount of stock, Congressmen would not need to be worried about elections. Still it is not logical to expect every Congressman to avail himself of this investment. It is not any more logical to expect every farmer to find himself in a position to follow all the worthwhile farm improvement practices he knows about.

4. We farmers have been hearing a lot of late from administration and USDA spokesmen about those fine words, "The farmer should learn to do more things for himself." The thinking farmer on hearing this statement, now being so solemnly made, is only amused, as the statement indicates clearly that the person making it is not familiar with either the family farmer or his problems. We farmers have been doing all we could for ourselves and our Nation ever since we have had a nation.

No administration or USDA spokesmen has as yet explained what else the farmer can do for himself. Since our Nation was founded, the only thing which has expanded the farmer's opportunity to do more things for himself is the Agricultural Adjustment Act and related acts. These laws gave to farmers a new opportunity to help ourselves and our Nation by cooperative, nationwide action to solve our problems. Now, it is being intimated to us, after we have worked with the Congress for 20 years to get our programs where they are today, that these programs are only makeshift, temporary expedients which must be replaced by programs which will permit us to do more for ourselves. Actually, the farmer thinks this kind of talk means that the big-business administration intends to divide the farmers into little groups so that they can easily be conquered. In union is strength; in segregation, despair. The thinking farmer knows this "do more things for yourself" talk is hogwash. He now has programs so versatile that with them he can meet any situation that may arise. Needless to say, he does not wish to trade them for untried, experimental ideas which he has considered and rejected several times for sound reasons.

5. The administration is wondering why we farmers are losing confidence in the USDA. What confidence can we have in the administration when its Secretary of Agriculture takes the active administration of their State and county programs out of their own hands and allows their elected committmen to spend only a few days a month to set policy for an office manager? Committeemen cannot possibly keep abreast of the problems in the time permitted and at best can give only uninformed, snap judgments to the office manager.

The administration claims the new system will cost less. This farmers do not believe to be true. Certainly the Department intends to make the committees cost less. This is being done by taking their duties away from them and giving them to someone else. But unless the services to farmers are curtailed, the present county and State manager plan will cost much more than letting the farmer committeemen do the job of actual administration of the programs. In doing this they are constantly in touch with the problems involved in program action, as well as the need for the program and knowledge of how the program should operate.

Often a well-conceived program bogs down because of administrative problems. Let us farmers develop leaders in the agricultural field by administering our own programs. Certainly we are capable of doing the job. We have been doing it very successfully in the States in the Nation's breadbasket for 20 years.

6. The program recommendations the State, county, and community program committeemen have made to the USDA since the new administration have been disregarded, pigeonholed, or nullified by the technical operative procedures attached to them by the USDA.

Take, for instance, the 1954 agricultural conservation program liming practice. The farmer may receive assistance in the application of limestone on his farm if he has not applied lime before. If he has not applied lime before, he is eligible if his soil has been tested and shows a need for it. But the facilities for properly testing the soil could not possibly make more than 10 percent of the number of tests to establish the need, so the need can be established by a determination that the legume stands of recent years were not satisfactory. Such a provision cannot possibly be honestly and equitably administered for the reason that the person or persons making the determination do not have the necessary evidence on which to base a decision. The cost of obtaining and maintaining the necessary records would be prohibitive. After they were obtained, it would be impossible to make equitable decisions because of variations in weather, farm rotation practices, kind of seed sown, method and time of sowing, pasturing practices, the use of fertilizer and/or manure, the judgment of the administrators, and even the farming ability of the farmer.

Then, if the farmer has successfully weathered all the ifs and buts to this point, he is eligible if the application of limestone is to an initial seeding.

So, knowing the farmer's distaste for red tape and being pushed around, how successful can you expect such a practice to be from an administrative angle and how effective will it be in getting the Nation's soils properly conditioned with lime?

So it is that the perfection of scientific dreamers, when applied to the farmer and his farm, comes out impractical and a complete failure, and the farmer has a feeling that it was intended so to be.

7. The departmental advisory committee is another source of dissatisfaction to farmers. It seems to them that if the advisory committee does not agree with the Secretary, he proceeds to discharge the committee and set up one