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The CHAIRMAN. Could you, in a nutshell, tell us what that subsection (f) would do to California, if enacted?

Mr. McKEEHAN. Yes, that would allow a grower to return to the county committee a portion or all of his allotment, if he did not want to plant it in a particular year, and then he could pick it up.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is in the law now.

Mr. MCKEEHAN. No; it went out. It is not in the 1956 law. It is only in the 1955 law. And then with the operation that you have now it becomes obsolete or did not operate beyond 1955. You do have it in the rice law. As I said, I grow rice, and the things that Mr. Lodi and Mr. Alioto spoke of are my sentiments, as well.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. MCKEEHAN. I want to thank the committee for this opportunity.

The CHAIRMAN. Now we get to the fruit and nut crops.
We will next hear from Mr. Angier.

STATEMENT OF HAROLD H. ANGIER, SECRETARY-TREASURER, PACIFIC COAST FRUIT EXPORT COUNCIL, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

Mr. ANGIER. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, I am the general manager of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League.

My appearance before you here today is in behalf of the Pacific Coast Fruit Export Council, of which I am the secretary-treasurer. The chairman of the board is Mr. F. R. Wilcox, who is assistant general manager of Sunkist Growers. Mr. Ernest Falk, manager of the Northwest Horticultural Council, is vice chairman.

The members of the Pacific Coast Fruit Export Council are the California-Arizona citrus industry-made up of American National Foods, Inc., Mutual Orange Distributors, and Sunkist Growers-the California Grape and Tree Fruit League, the Dried Fruit Association of California, and the Northwest Horticultural Council.

These organizations are all vitally interested in the exporting of perennial horticultural crops and products and in reestablishing and expanding export markets. They have associated themselves exclusively for this purpose.

It is not our purpose at this hearing to attempt to go into any of the background history or complexities of the current program of exporting fruit and fruit products. Much of this information is in the record of hearings before your Subcommittee on Administration of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954 and other acts relating to the disposal of surplus agricultural commodities. The testimony found in part II of the 1955 hearing record printed for the use of your committee and presented by witnesses Ernest Falk, manager of the Northwest Horticultural Council, Yakima, Wash.; Martin E. Hearn, export coordinator, the Florida Citrus Mutual, Lakeland, Fla.; Karl D. Loos, traffic counsel for Sunkist Growers and also representing Mutual Orange Distributors; Truman Nold, executive secretary of the National Apple Institute; and the statement filed by Alfred Tisch, chairman of the export committee of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League, will suffice as reference for the record. We are pleased to inform your committee that a United States Na

tional Fruit Export Council, with a membership consisting of all the major fruit organizations in the United States, is presently in the final process of organization. When this council is completed, it plans to prepare a statement of policy and objectives to be presented to Congress and to Government agencies.

I would like at this point to state that our ultimate objective is the return to normal trading; in other words, the opportunity to trade in fruit and fruit products with foreign importers on a private trading basis without the necessity of financial assistance from Government. Since the end of World War II we have, through our various industry organizations, expended every effort to bring to Government agencies a true realization of the importance of exports to the economic well-being of the fruit industry of this country. The major obstructions to foreign trade in fruit and fruit products are the result of actions by foreign governments. We must therefore rely on our Government to remove these trade barriers.

Where our Government can assist us most effectively is in helping to open the doors to trade. By this I mean the elimination of all types of restrictions imposed by foreign governments obstructing trade in the usual or normal sense.

Until this objective is attained, we must rely on aid from Government in negotiating sales under the currency conversion provisions of Public Law 480 and section 402 of the Mutual Security Act.

We believe Foreign Agricultural Service should continue to encourage sales of fruit and fruit products under Public Law 480 in those few countries where there are real dollar shortages or balance-of-payments difficulties.

While ostensibly fruits may be included in negotiations under this law, to date we have no record of any sales of fruit and fruit products being made. We have, of course, enjoyed considerable business under section 402 of the Mutual Security Act. We would prefer liberalization of trade instead of government-to-government programs which at best are only substitutes and very cumbersome, especially insofar as the highly perishable fresh product is concerned.

The CHAIRMAN. Could you be more specific as to what you mean by "liberalization of trade"?

Mr. ANGIER. I mean the opportunity to trade with foreign countries without being confronted with embargoes, with premium exchange rates, all of the various gimmicks that the foreign nations have put into effect that preclude us from the equality of opportunity to do business in those countries.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand. How would you attain that-how would you attain that-how could you force that on the foreign nation?

Mr. ANGIER. Well, the only way it can be done is for our State Department in their negotiations for the committee presently going to Geneva to negotiate under GATT, to get some concessions from those countries, to liberalize their trade with us, in exchange for concessions that we have been continuously giving to them.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, I presume you also have reference to reciprocal trade agreements?

Mr. ANGIER. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. All right; proceed.

Mr. ANGIER. The 50-50 cargo preference clause remains as an obstacle to trade under Public Law 480 and section 402 of the Mutual Security Act, particularly with maritime nations. We appreciate the help your committee has given us in an effort to eliminate this clause. The legislation passed by Congress returning the agricultural_attachés to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Department of Agriculture has been highly beneficial and helpful to the fruit industry. Reports from the recent conference of United States agricultural attachés in Paris are most encouraging. We want to go on record as opposing any move to return the agricultural attachés to the Department of State.

In closing, we want to commend your committee and the House Committee on Agriculture for your assistance in supporting the reorganization of the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, United States Department of Agriculture, into the Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA.

This department, since its reorganization, has extended every effort to open the export markets for fruit and fruit products. This industry is extremely pleased with the Foreign Agricultural Service and the effort the Fruit and Vegetable Division is making to assist us with our objective of reestablishing and expanding export markets for fruit and fruit products.

We respectfully request the Congress to continue its unqualified support of this particular branch of the United States Department of Agriculture.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

We will next hear from Mr. Grady.

STATEMENT OF DWIGHT K. GRADY, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, CALIFORNIA FIG INSTITUTE, FRESNO, CALIF.

Mr. GRADY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my name is Dwight K. Grady. I am chairman of the board of the California Fig Institute, an association of growers wholly owned and controlled and financed by grower funds. And it is dedicated to the promotion and welfare of the dry-fig industry of California.

Incidentally, California is the only State in the Union producing dried figs.

Like many other of California's finely diversified industries, the fig industry has problems that are peculiar to a certain group, such as the edible tree nut, the avocadoes, and so forth. They are highly developed specialties, produced to meet basically American demand, and have succeeded because they have succeeded in satisfying American standards, American consumer requirements.

Last night, Mr. Senator, in your talk to the group of people present, you stressed the need for conservation if we are not to become at some time in the future a have-not nation. I endorse that thinking completely.

I think that we have other types of conservation that are needed, however, other than top soil. I think that we are confronted with a choice as to whether we will conserve many of these industries, these specialty industries we have in California.

If we do not conserve them, it is not too difficult to bulldoze out an orchard and to plant a pasture crop of some kind that would compli

cate some of the other problems about which you have all heard already this morning.

The balance is a delicate one. And the economic problems of these industries are peculiar and acute.

You just heard Mr. Angier advocate wider and more effective use of the reciprocal trade agreement program, of receiving satisfactory quid pro quos in exchange for those that we give to foreign nations; that we undertake in some way, if I may put it in my own words, to prevent the State Department from trading horses for rabbits. That certainly is necessary. And the viewpoint and the philosophy of the California fig industry is, I believe, wholly consistent in any nationalization of that view.

The fig industry produces only for the domestic market. In fact, it does not produce enough to supply the domestic market. It has no ambitions to go into competition with its foreign competitors, in supplying the world market. We are satisfied to have the foreign country enjoy those markets. And, indeed, I think our statesmanship is broader than that. We are perfectly willing to share our domestic market with foreign producers, provided that sharing is done on a basis of fair competition, not price-cutting, preemptive economies, destroying pricing practices, that not only takes their fair share of the market, but a substantial part of our fair share, and leaves us with crops unprocessed and unsold for the benefit of our producers.

The fig industry, membership, producers have considerable pride in what they have been able to accomplish. Since 1927 they have been working together in one form or another; and in 1934 organized this fig institute to carry on constructive programs for the benefit of the industry.

We later on entered into a marketing order under State auspices and later in 1954 we agreed to and adopted a Federal marketing agreement program.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that under State law?

Mr. GRADY. One is under State law, and the other is under the Federal Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, as amended.

Under these several programs, the institute carries on extensive constructive research dedicated to the improvement of quality and production practices in this industry. It also carries on other types of relationships-public relations, Government relations, and so forth-all intended to disseminate accurate and acceptable information to our public at large.

Through its leadership, it effected and initiated in the early days an advertising and trade-promotion program to let the public know more about this exceptionally fine product. It has led to the development of the program which caused the diversion of low-grade fruit away from the market and into nonfood channels. And annually it has diverted what would average about 25 percent of its orchard run production into such nonfood channels-and I might say by way of observation that our foreign competitors do not do that. They sell that type of production in the price market of Europe, or other places outside of the United States. They are required under food and drug statutes, at least, to meet a minimum standard established by that, which is also a part of the basis of our own operation.

So that we control not only the quality of our product, but the volume that we offer to the market, and that in terms of total demand is a deficit volume.

In other words, there is room here for two or three thousand tons of imported figs.

Under the Federal marketing agreement and order, we are eligible for attention under section 22 of that act, which provides that the Secretary, upon a finding, may report to the President, and then through the Tariff Commission a determination may be made as to the economic facts of the case, and the facilities of quotas and quota fees are available.

This industry has processed an application for consideration-and bear in mind that opposition in essence is that we support the theories of reciprocal trade programs, multilateral removable trade barriers and things of that kind-but we feel that the United States cannot continue to give concessions to foreign countries that tend to demoralize and destroy any part of the American economy. We have got about the best laboratory sample of that sort of thing in this State, because we are so widely diversified, with a couple of hundred crops grown here commercially, and we satisfy the Nation almost exclusively in some of these products, like your edible tree nuts, et cetera. Our position is not that we should have a Chinese wall around us. Our position is that we should have a controlled inflow here. Give them a quota covering their fair share of the market, and then see to it that a principle like the operation of the law of supply and demand begins to work.

If there is a shortage, and if there is a continuing demand, that should have its reflection in the price trend. When commodities are overabundant, of course, prices go down. That is what has been happening because uncontrolled imports which destroy the opportunity for us to sell the product that we have produced here have come in.

And annually our carryover crop increases; and obviously in a specialty of this kind the consumer recognizes, and his reaction is always better to new early delivery of fruit, and not to the delivery of fruit that by age has gone through some natural deterioration in flavor or color, and things of that sort, which are commercially required.

So that here we have an industry that is truly a self-help industry. It is true that we are taking advantage of the statutory provisions to maintain certain regulations, but we do not go on an annual trek to Washington asking for financial assistance.

And our growers dig down into their jeans, as well as the processors with them, to finance these programs, but we do insist that at least we be permitted to play on the field in a basis and in relation to fair rules of competition.

We have undergone some delays and some concerns. We have seen agencies a few months ago, when this request for consideration came under section 22, or prior to that one, we proposed the establishment of a Federal marketing agreement to give our producers the advantages of their statutory rights under the law.

We understand that two administrative agencies of Government addressed communications to the Secretary of Agriculture which in effect were protests against acceding to the request of this industry.

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