WHAT CAN HAPPEN NEXT SPRING IN OHIO

If price supports are lowered next April 1, the basic price in Ohio could drop 50 cents per hundredweight below last spring. Under the present revised supplydemand amendment to the Cleveland order now in effect, the differential amount can drop 25 cents per hundredweight below last spring. A supply-demand amendment is also in effect in other Ohio markets.

Ohio prices are determined by adding the differential to the basic price under present Federal orders. Thus, producer milk prices in Ohio next spring could drop 75 cents per hundredweight under those prevailing last spring.

State experts estimated that 8,000 dairymen shipping to Cleveland received only 31 cents per hour for their labor at prices prevailing in the Cleveland market under Federal Order No. 75 during April, May, and June 1953. Feed and labor costs will likely be almost as high, if not higher, next spring due to the 1953 drought and farm-labor shortage. If so, farmers would receive even less than 31 cents per hour for their labor next year.

ADVERTISING

An extensive advertising campaign is now getting under way. We believe this has great possibilities. It should be encouraged in every way possible, with participation by all States in a year-round set-aside for promotion of dairy products. However, it is the experience of many businessmen that the results from advertising cannot be expected immediately. It may take considerable time to realize the full benefit from this program. In the meantime, it is very important that the prices of dairy products be supported. Proper floor prices are needed to protect producers against disaster in case of a major recession.

Mr. DAGUE. We have a statement from H. L. Mantle which he asked to be included in the record, which will be done.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

Hon. Congressman CLIFFORD R. HOPE,

MANTLE & MANTLE, PROPRIETORS OF LAKE ERIE FARM, Painesville, Ohio, October 19, 1953.

Chairman, House Agricultural Committee,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. HOPE: Since you are asking the farmers to make recommendations for a farm program, I wish to take the opportunity to make one suggestion. My name is H. L. Mantle with residence at Painesville, Ohio. Together, with my son, we own and operate a 263-acre farm and in addition rent about 280 more acres of cropland. Our products are principally fruit, peaches and apples predominating, and grain-certified hybrid seed corn for seed being the principal

item.

Undoubtedly you are familiar with the 1944 report of the committee of 19 from the land-grant colleges called Post War Agricultural Policy of the Association. On pages 21, 22, and 23 they name some various forms of price supports. The one they call the second alternative provides for "equivalent payments."

Without much of the redtape of the Brannan plan, which to a certain extent appropriated this principle, I would like to see this plan put into effect in an experimental way with proper production limitations on one of the perishable crops.

As pointed out by the Land Grant Association Committee, this would have the effect of stabilizing the price to the farmers, seeing that all the subsidy paid went direct to the farmers, similar to what was done during the war with milk, butterfat, and a few other items, and would let no accumulated surplus.

Since it had the recommendation of so qualified a group as that committee of 19, I feel that it is worthy of consideration and I trust that you will recommend a fair trial of it in an experimental way.

Yours very truly

Mr. DAGUE. Mr. Suter?

H. L. MANTLE.

STATEMENT OF ELAM SUTER, PANDORA, OHIO

Mr. SUTER. Gentlemen, members of the committee; I am Elam Suter, from Pandora, Ohio.

I am a general farmer, and livestock is my specalty, feeding beef cattle.

In the State of Ohio, there are approximately 87,000 family-type farms-to this I will give my thought-64 percent of the total number of farmers in the State, these farms whose income ranges from $2,500 to $25,000.

However, I shall limit my remarks to the general diversified livestock farm and its relation to the farm program.

The family-sized stock farm is a farm which provides employment for the members of the family throughout the year.

The standard of living depends on the efficiency and the labor of its members. In general the livestock farm is limited primarily to its acres of land, limiting the number of livestock that can be maintained. Other limiting factors are the productivity of the soil, weather, and the diseases of the crop and livestock.

Therefore, there is a point where the farm will reach the greatest efficiency of production.

Therefore, the livestock farmer can and will produce approximately the same number of various species of animals from year to year and is therefore, by its very nature, a stabilizing factor in our economy. Every farm program within the past 15 years has caused several abnormal trends in the family-sized farms.

During the war years labor shortage on the farm and industry was caused by the draft, causing the livestock farmer to turn to grain farming with consequent reduction in livestock numbers on the farms.

During the postwar years, and with our foreign trade taking our grain, and domestic trade absorbing our livestock numbers, the farmer found himself in a favorable position with other economic groups; however, in this period our Government payment of subsidies for various farm products always caused an overabundance of the products subsidized.

Now our loss of foreign grain trade and the increase of livestock numbers the farmer is now caught in the economic squeeze.

If the family-size livestock farm would have been maintained during this period I feel we would not now face such a critical agriculture period.

Thank you.

Mr. DAGUE. Mr. George F. Tyler is the next witness.

You may proceed, Mr. Tyler.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE F. TYLER, ALEXANDRIA, OHIO

Mr. TYLER. Mr. Chairman and Members of Congress, my name is George F. Tyler, R. F. D. 1, Alexandria, Ohio. I own 75 acres of land in Jersey Township in western Licking County, and in partnership with my father farm an additional 125 acres which he owns in St. Albans Township, about a mile apart.

I am a veteran of World War II and a past master of Alexandria Grange 1989, and its present legislative agent.

However, at this meeting I speak only for myself. I have no prepared statement but just some things I have thought of. I favor a flexible farm price-support system, a bottom for times of disaster. However, I do wish to make one point. I do not favor price controls on agricultural products as such in time of emergency, as have been administered in the past.

Several years ago I was feeding beef cattle.

Suddenly Mr. DiSalle put a lot of price controls on us. They were an unrealistic set of price controls. If we must sometime in the future have price controls let's at least have them realistic as to the grade of the livestock.

There are a lot of different grades of meat in livestock, not just Choice and Commercial. On the subject of milk and dairy farming, my father used to own a large dairy farm. Because of changing conditions we had to give that up.

However, before the war milk that you bought from the land here was 4 percent or better. Today it is 3.5, 3.8, and even as low as 3.2, which is down close to skim milk.

I don't think many cows give it that low. I think we could solve some of our butter problems if we put back 4 percent fluid milk, and I would like to see a law to that effect in Congress.

There is one matter that has been brought up here on the storage of farm grains. I would like to see some laws which would allow the farmer, for tax purposes, to write off his buildings for storage purposes, just the same as the industrial steel magnate can write off his new steel mill for defense purposes, because this is as great a defense activity as a steel mill.

We need lower tariffs on manufactured products and we need to trade more in the world's market places.

Trade must be a two-way thing. We cannot just sell, sell, sell for gold. There is too much of it in Fort Knox right now.

Also, to us in agriculture, so-called fair-trade laws are very unfair because we must sell on the world market, but the manufacturer can say what we must pay.

He, like Lilly Co. or any other drug house, buys the byproducts of our slaughtered animals, makes them into drugs and sells them back to us at a thousand fold what he bought them from us for.

More research is definitely needed in plant and animal diseases and parasites. In this matter I believe that the Congress could well spend more money in our land-grant colleges and experimental stations.

Also from the standpoint of marketing, we need to find out more of the reason for the spread between what the farmer gets and what the consumer pays. In September of this year my father, who produces sheep, lambs, sold lambs for 21 cents on the market place here in Columbus. My aunt, who is a city girl, had to pay 92 cents a pound for very mediocre lamb here in Columbus at her butchershop.

In the matter of the Soil Conservation Service it has been a great boon to us, and I wish to see it continued and expanded if possible. However, other speakers have covered that matter thoroughly. Here in Ohio-and I am certain in many other States, even in the Great Plains of the Middle West which I have traveled-we need to reforest a great portion of our marginal land.

Also I would like to see greatly increased the educational facilities of our land-grant colleges to better educate the young people of this county.

I was fortunate in attending Ohio State University College of Agriculture.

Also we need to expand this education at a high-school level through our 4-H Clubs and vocational agriculture.

I know that vocational agriculture departments are crying for teachers, and we need to expand this teacher training.

Thank you.

Mr. DAGUE. Thank you.

The next witness will be Mr. Stacey. Following Mr. Stacev will be Thomas Watson, of Newcomerstown, Ohio.

STATEMENT OF MR. STACEY, LOWELL, OHIO

Mr. STACEY. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am a vegetable grower in Washington County in Lowell, Ohio, in the southeastern part of the State, and also a small feeder.

I appreciate the opportunity to present my thinking on adequate sources of credit for agriculture.

There is need for more credit and more satisfactory terms than in the years past.

Agriculture has developed into a much bigger business. Not too many years ago the ratio of investment in land to equipment was about 5 to 1.

Now that ratio is about 1 to 1. Unless credit is available at a reasonable rate of interest and on a suitable long-term basis, inefficient farming operations result.

This is brought about because of underdevelopment of land and farmers being underequipped as compared to the recommendations of our land-grant colleges and our experimental stations.

Adequate credit available will permit the attainment of these standards. Many young men and women with farm backgrounds and know-how who have 4-H Club experience, FFA work, vocational agricultural training, or other related training will become farmers of the future.

They will become the homemakers, operators, or owners of farms if the opportunity is available through adequate credit on suitable long terms.

Farm credit facilities, therefore, should be continued and adjusted to meet the present-day requirements for efficiency of operation in order that agriculture may attain its rightful place on a level with industry.

Mr. ĎAGUE. Thank you, Mr. Stacey.

Mr. Watson is the next witness.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS WATSON, NEWCOMERSTOWN, OHIO

Mr. WATSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the Agriculture Committee: I am a farmer, a grain farmer from Tuscarawas County, Ohio. I own my own farm, together with people from whom I bought it who have a mortgage, and one of our good life-insurance companies of this city who have helped me get a decent rate of interest on it.

Speaking of credits and interest, that is something we need more of. It should be available to everyone. It should not be crawling up all the time to farmers, like everything else in industry.

Touching on the two-price system, I believe that farming is a big enough gamble in itself. I am afraid it would be too much like the fluid milk. I go along with that gentleman who talked about the average-price system on milk. I am afraid we would be into about a 75 percent of parity, and I am having a struggle enough in getting along with 90 percent of parity.

By the time I pay help-I have a hired man that I am paying this year more per month than I have averaged in the last 3 years.

In fact, last year I had to pay a little income tax, and I am thankful. The 2 years before I did not. I might add that I borrowed money to buy fertilizer in order to pay this tax, and had to pay an exorbitant rate of interest for it.

I went ahead and used fertilizer against all bankers' advice. Now touching on Federal crop insurance, I believe we need more of it. If the insurance business for the man's life and the health of his family is good, why should it not be for his sustenance?

As to livestock prices, everyone knows they are terrible. Along with 100 percent of parity, we definitely should have controls. If you want an example, go to industry.

I imagine they have the smartest men in the business. In fact, I will have to thank our present administration for going there to get some brains. But look at what they are doing. At the International plant at Rock Island, Ill., last August, they cut production 50 percent. What a cry would go up if farmers would do such.

When we took the privilege to vote on this wheat allotment, which wonderful, the editor of our local paper in Cambridge, Ohio, said that. we should stop and consider the welfare of humanity.

I also read in a noted magazine, that I have quit taking because I could not stand it any longer, where they knew what was wrong with the French Government-they had cut production and raised prices. They knew in a moment what was wrong over there, but they could not see it in our own country. As to research, that is all well and good. We have had research, but it has not solved our problems. I might add that we have got a fine experiment station, and I imagine they will keep production up equal to what research will accomplish in doing away with our surpluses.

I wonder how a little research would work with industry in maybe lowering the price of their machinery so that maybe I could buy some new tractors.

I am working with jumpers now. In fact, I just had to order a new tire. It had gone up the 5th of this month 22 percent.

The railroad workers got a 3 cent an hour raise, so a man who works there part time told me this week-end.

There is another thing that I read in my local paper. I have several clippings cut out: The high cost of living. The high cost of living— I am afraid it is the cost of living high.

And speaking of that, a farmer cannot live high when we are averaging 35 to 40 cents per hour for our labor. Most dirt farmers will tell you that.

I have been asked by a neighbor who raises cattle how we would support cattle prices, and also I am in favor of every product on the farm being taken care of in two ways: Control production and whatever amount that the Government wants produced, or the people want