It is manifestly unfair that protection of domestic market for other areas and other varieties can destroy a vigorous and profitable industry in California. These differences must be recognized. Unless California can export its rice-rice trade and its factories in the field will die.

So long as prices and qaulities are right our best customer, Japan, will buy abundantly but agreements to circumvent the law of supply and demand will only serve to perpetuate the problem of surpluses. Let nature take its course. It will hurt for a while but it will be sound economics.

We would have less talk about putting CCC's rice surplus through a grinder so it will fall into the unmerchantable class and be sold for feed.

During the last 4 years Asia has imported annually much more wheat than rice reversing the prewar pattern of trade. Our California rice prices should be allowed to reach their true economic levels so we may be competitive. This State should not be penalized because it can be competitive.

Bankers are notoriously conservative by nature. I would estimate that 90 percent of the rice financing of this State is done by the largest bank in the State, the largest bank in the Nation, namely, the Bank of America. I have talked at some length to responsible people within the bank and they have indicated to me that they would finance going growers outside a support and allocation program. This statement by me should be of some significance to this committee. I think it is easily recognizable that such a large institution would not take this position unless the product was considered marketable. Remember, gentlemen, this is a national bank, and remember, too, gentlemen, that not one bag of California rice has gone Commodity Credit Coporation's hand.

into

My little daughter listening to me dictate this last night summed it up as a child only can. She said, "Daddy, I think they are forcing you to go on support for red beans when you grow white beans."

That is just about the story. I have said it before and I say it again, cats like catnip and the Japanese like fresh milled California rice. They need 300,000 to 350,000 metric tons of it each year. Let's not cut the throat of this market by shortening its supply.

When I say shortening its supply, I took a cut last year, this year, of 34 percent. I am faced with an acreage cut this coming year for another 15 percent. I am looking at an acreage of 505,000 acres curtailed to 350,000, but actually to 340,000 this year, and down to 306,000 in the coming year.

I want to thank you gentlemen. I have got a loud voice, and I think that the independent farmer ought to look to you for a fair break.

Are there any questions you are going to ask me, Senator Ellender? If you have, I would be very pleased to answer them; I am steeped in the subject.

The CHAIRMAN. There are plenty I would like to ask you but I am not going to, because of the limited time.

Mr. HANLEY. I hope it is not in reference to any wild politics.
The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. Alvin Dyer present?

Is Robert Null present?

Mr. E. K. Finney?

Mr. FINNEY. Let Mrs. Fischer speak first and then I can follow her.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well, sir.

STATEMENT OF MRS. GENE FISCHER, WESTERN DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION, ESCALON, CALIF.

Mrs. FISCHER. My name is Mrs. Gene Fischer; I speak for the Western Dairymen's Association.

I am a dairy rancher's wife. We have been there since 1918. The only reason that they picked on me, a woman, to represent them is because they could not afford the luxury of hiring a milker so they could come there by themselves. That speaks rather eloquently for the situation of the little grade B dairyman.

I am not bringing you impressive statistical figures. I think you have loads of it today.

I have only three simple facts. I am a simple woman and I will state them to you simply.

The first fact is this: The grade B dairymen pay just as much for their hay as the grade A producer. We pay just as much for the concentrates and they are steadily going up.

We pay just as much for veterinarian service and we pay the same high rate of taxes, also steadily increasing, as the grade A dairymen.

The second fact is there is a substantial price difference between the grade A and the grade B milk.

The third fact, and that is a very important one, at least it is to us, consumer prices in the dairy products have continued to rise while the price paid to producers has been lowered.

Unless the dairymen can participate in the very substantial increase in profits of the large distributors and the creamery they will be forced out of business; some of them already have been forced out of business.

Something must be done to help us out of our steadily increased burden to meet the high cost of production, and to gain some measure of security.

We, the members of the Western Dairymen's Association, unit 9, Escalon-Oakdale, believe the answer lies in direct subsidy to the producer.

Now, don't get startled. We are not holding out our hands for a dole. We are simply asking for a fair share for the fruits of our labor, not to mention our capital investment.

The CHAIRMAN. How would you obtain that end? Would you tell us that?

Mrs. FISCHER. I wish to God I knew.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish so, too.

Mrs. FISCHER. The present flexible 75 percent parity, frankly, we do not understand. We are just as confused as we can be, all of us. We are simple people. I would like to ask you, but I am quite certain you have not the time to explain it, and I am quite certain I have not the brains to assimilate it.

But as near as we can understand it, it protects the processor, the creameries, and not us little people.

We are the little people, Mr. Chairman, and you gentlemen, but we are not insignificant in the economy of California. Please help us. We need your help.

Thank you for letting me appear before you. [Applause.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Finney?

STATEMENT OF E. K. FINNEY, MODESTO, CALIF.

Mr. FINNEY. I notice, Mr. Chairman, you are more interested in what should be done than you are in the woes of the farmers, so I have confined myself strictly to suggestions of the Riverbank Grange in regard to the dairy business.

The CHAIRMAN. We are looking for a solution to the problem. I think we know the problem pretty well, as this fine lady just stated it. Mr. FINNEY. I gathered that, and I will assure you we have the solution right here, the Riverbank Grange.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Proceed and let us see what you have.

Mr. FINNEY. Members of the Ellender committee, gentlemen, we believe that State controls over the price of milk should be abolished and that prices should be allowed to seek their own level on the market, and that the Federal Government should make direct payments to producers to cover any difference between the average market price and 100 percent of parity. We say 100 percent of parity, since no less than a balance between what the dairyman has to pay out in order to produce, and what he takes in for his milk will place him, by the very definition of parity, on an equal footing with the rest of our economy.

We as dairymen believe that the same consideration should be given us as is given to the woolgrowers.

I am a woolgrower, too, and I thank God for Benson. I would like to change my mind in regard to his attitude on the dairy.

The price-support principle has been accepted by nearly everyone. Dairymen must get the cost of production-parity-if our Nation's milk supply is to be assured. The original intent of price supports to the dairymen was to insure a supply of milk and milk products during the war and to stabilize the income of dairymen.

Now the middleman is becoming the sole beneficiary at the expense of the dairyman, consumer, and taxpayer, and gentlemen, our family raises rice and we raise wheat and we raise barley and we raise pretty nearly everything that is raised in California, and I have listened to what they all said here and I know the troubles about the situation. But the support price, the parity-price supports, have not helped the actual farmer.

We could not borrow 5 cents on our wheat; we could not borrow it on our rice; we could not borrow it on our barley.

We were forced to take from 50 to 60 cents each year until we gained the Rice Association, and then we got back up a little because we had no storage. It has not been of benefit.

The only one it has been of benefit to are the millers, the buyers, the handlers. It has not been of benefit, gentlemen. Even our President, President Eisenhower, said it is too bad that he could not pass some

of the supports on to the dairymen, but he said it could not be done. It goes to the handlers. It goes to the processors. All right.

Now, we believe that controls must be placed on handlers and processors so that the ultimate consumer, and not they, shall profit from the lower price of milk.

Thank you, gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Just a moment. I did not quite understand the statement you said about Mr. Benson. You thanked him for-what was that?

Mr. FINNEY. How was that?

The CHAIRMAN. I understood you to say in your statement a while ago that you thanked Mr. Benson for something.

Mr. FINNEY. For the program on the woolgrowers.

The CHAIRMAN. You ought to thank his predecessor, Mr. Brannan, because it is generally referred to as the Brannan plan. [Applause.] Mr. FINNEY. I sincerely thank him. If he applied it to the dairy, it would be pretty good, too.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. David Bateman? Is he present?

Come forward, Mr. Bateman.

I am sorry I had to skip around this way, but it was my desire to first hear from all industries. I am going over the list and I am going to stick here and hear as many of you as I can.

Proceed, sir.

May I say this also, and this will apply to you, Mr. Bateman, that from here on out let us try to confine testimony to new matters.

STATEMENT OF VERNON DAVIS, MADERA, CALIF.

Mr. DAVIS. I am not Mr. Bateman, but I was asked to speak in his place, Mr. Chairman.

I am Vernon Davis.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you give your name in full?

Mr. DAVIS. Vernon Davis, cotton grower from Madera County, and also representing him for the Grange.

I understand that Congress, Congress of the United States, is thinking of changing the Agricultural Market Act, to make it more workable and if possible to eliminate or greatly reduce cotton surpluses and provide assistance to the United States cottongrower that will enable him to enjoy the American standard of living.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the length of your statement?

Mr. DAVIS. Not very long. I will not take much of your time.
The CHAIRMAN. About a minute?

Mr. DAVIS. I think so.

The CHAIRMAN. All right; proceed.

Mr. DAVIS. First, acreage curtailment is not the answer. By curtailing the acreage we only make the poor cottongrower poorer. Taxes, water, and upkeep must be paid for on the land whether we grow cotton or not. As long as corporations and individuals, citizens of the United States, are allowed to invest our money in growing cotton in foreign lands and sell it in direct competition with the citizen that grows cotton in the United States, acreage curtailment only deprives the citizen that grows cotton in the United States the opportunity to make a living.

The United States citizen individual or corporation who produces any cotton outside of the United States should not be allowed to receive any benefits from the operation of the Agricultural Adjustment Act in the United States.

No. 2, there must be written into the law a section that stipulates the maximum amount that any cottongrower may receive from parity payments, support prices, loans, or otherwise under the Agricultural Act of the United States, and that amount must be low enough to keep large operators from growing cotton surpluses in the United States.

No. 3, all growers must produce quality cotton. Most of the surplus cotton on hand is of an inferior quality and not in demand on any

market.

The cotton that is grown in the West because of its high quality is not in the surplus stock. It is in demand by the mills in the United States and foreign countries.

We feel that inasmuch as the cottongrower in the West is growing a high-grade cotton that is in demand there should be no further reduction of acreage.

The CHAIRMAN. How about price protection? Would you want that, too?

Mr. DAVIS. How is that?

The CHAIRMAN. Would you want price protection?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir; I believe we should have price supports. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, protect you and let you grow all you want?

Mr. DAVIS. No; I believe we should have controls.

The CHAIRMAN. Control of acreage?

Mr. DAVIS. Controls. Contrary to many of the statements that have been made here today, I think there is an overproduction and I do not believe as you have seen today--I do not believe farmers can get together in any kind of a program. They have got to have the Government to back them to make some kind of a program.

The CHAIRMAN. I will tell you, if you farmers cannot get together, how do you expect us Senators to get together?

Mr. DAVIS. I do not know. You have got the biggest headache and you can-and if you can understand and assimilate what has been said here today, there is no place in the world for you and you ought to be in heaven.

The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. Warren Austin here?

Will you step forward, Mr. Austin?

Mr. Austin, as you may notice, we are growing short of time, and if you could give us the highlights, we would appreciate it. Mr. AUSTIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF WARREN AUSTIN, MEMBER, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, ARIZONA DAIRYMEN'S LEAGUE, PHOENIX, ARIZ.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. Chairman, my name is Warren Austin. I am a dairyman from Arizona and a member of the board of directors of the Arizona Dairymen's League.