4. That the Secretary of Agriculture use all available section 32 funds to alleviate the distress in perishable crops, and not return the same to the Treasury, as he has done in the past. One hundred million dollars of such funds were available, and he declined to use them to assist the distressed farmer in the past 12 months.

5. That the farmer on the family-sized farm have additional low-cost eredit, other than disaster credit.

6. That the Congress reestablish the Federal food stamp program, to dispose of the surplus foods while at the same time raising the dietary level of the undernourished children, the aged and the handicapped, and the underprivileged. 7. That Congress reassure the people by proper legislation that the Rural Electrification Administration's functions will be carried forward, and not sabotaged by the administration.

8. That the Congress take such action as may be necessary to reactivate and broaden the Federal crop insurance program, in order that the farmer finally may be protected from the disaster of the loss of crops.

9. That Congress appropriate additional funds for the expansion of the schoollunch program.

10. That Congress appropriate necessary funds for the undertaking and completion of the San Luis division of the Trinity project, urgently needed to supplement the water supply of central California farms; and that the Congress adopt and follow such policy and enact such legislation as may be necessary to develop such projects elsewhere in our land as they may be needed.

11. That the Congress revitalize and appropriate adequate funds for the expansion of the technical assistance program for aid to underdeveloped nations, particularly in respect to the employment of our own farm surplus in those areas. 12. That the Congress undertake a thorough investigation into the incredible and increasing spread between what the housewife pays for her food in the retail market, and what the farmer receives for the same product harvested from the farms.

13. That the Congress support the United Nations world reserve of food with adequate funds and such contributions as may be necessary to maintain it. The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. Williams present? Mr. Corbitt? (No response.)

Ladies and gentlemen we have reached the end of the list.

I have called everybody that was on this list. I wish to take this occasion to thank the people of Fresno and California as a whole for their attention and for the testimony that was produced here today.

I want to take this opportunity of also thanking my good friend, Alan Bible, who is the Senator from Nevada, for remaining here the whole day with me.

(Statement filed by Alan Bible, a United States Senator from the State of Nevada:)

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee this morning. I am particularly gratified that you have come across the country to meet with those of us who live in the Far West. Naturally, I am sorry time does not permit your coming into Nevada, but it goes without saying that Nevada has everything just as good as you find in California, with none of the bad things such as smog and fog. We may not have so much of some things, but we can modestly assure you that what we do have is the best to be found anywhere. If we can't produce the best, we don't try to grow it.

I can tell you with proud confidence that we are growing the finest cotton in the world, just over the mountains over there to the east and south. All we want is enough more acreage to give our Nevada growers just one cotton gin. Let me emphasize, my friends, we are not asking for one more gin-we just want one gin.

Seriously, I am well aware that your committee, Senator Ellender, faces one of the grimmest problems of all times as you seek to balance commodity production against consumption. You also must try to arbitrate the constant battle of geography, such as that of the cotton industry of the South against that of the West. I am happy that I can assure our western friends here that they will never find a fairer referee than they have in you as chairman of the Agriculture Committee of the United States Senate.

I should tell you, before you feel you must remind me of it, that the United States may produce this year 600,000 more bales of cotton than the October 1 estimate. Our beautiful autumn weather may bring its headaches in this way if production continues so bountifully. I understand the 1955 crop may exceed demand more than 2 million bales. I realize Washington plans to cut 1956 plantings to approximately 17 million acres, or nearly one-third below 1953.

With full awareness of these facts, I still request your attention to the importance of increasing the allotment for Nevada enough, at the minimum, to permit our growers to support a cotton gin. It isn't a happy situation, gentlemen, to know you can produce cotton of such high quality that buyers clamor for it, and yet be told you cannot grow it. We are not asking for Government support for our cotton, as the records of the Department of Agriculture will verify not one bale of Nevada cotton has spent a night in a warehouse waiting for a taker. However, because we have no gin, we must get a good price for it to survive.

As I told you earlier, we produce the best, the very best. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who knows the fertile valley lying over those high mountains to the east. Ask if cotton from Pahrump is not of the highest quality, clean, white, long fibered. Ask if those growers have any justification for seeking your support for giving them just enough increased allocation to put them on an equal basis with growers elsewhere who probably could not conceive of a situation where a gin was not almost automatically available. I know your growers have their problems, too, Mr. Chairman; but I wonder how they would enjoy having to bale their cotton with an old hay baler, as if it were alfalfa, and then ship it by truck 300 miles over those mountains to reach the nearest cotton gin, which is at Arvin, Calif.

As a matter of fact, I think I should let you know what we feel we should have, especially if we aim to be consistent in the way we run our Government departments. Nevada is an undeveloped State. We need every encouragement to every possible agricultural activity capable of existing in our delightful but admittedly rigorous climate and rocky soil. We have few areas capable of producing crops without irrigation, and in most places water is very scarce. We can produce unlimited acres of cotton in southern Nevada. The dean of our College of Agriculture represents the thinking of all our farm experts when he stresses that we should have a minimum of 80,000 acres under development in southern Nevada. We are not presently asking for this amount, naturally; but don't forget we are ready, able, and more than willing to accept all we can get for the purpose of permitting expansion of what we know will be a highly successful industry for Nevada.

A recent announcement from Denver (see New York Times, Tuesday, October 25, 1955, p. 1) outlines a so-called point 4 program for the United States, under which, and I quote Dr. Arthur Burns, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, "That program will make sure that communities get needed technical assistance to develop programs for their own economic development. Federal money," according to Dr. Burns, "would be given to stimulate growth and development in depressed areas, but the program would put a very definite accent on private enterprise." We are advised this legislation will be sent to Congress next January for action, if possible, before June.

The significance of this is interesting, Mr. Chairman, when you realize that I come before you today asking your committee not to assist, but to permit areas in my State of Nevada to develop a program which they have already tested and found ideally suited to solve their economic problems. Let us not feed a man with one hand and with the other choke so hard he cannot swallow food abundantly around him. Perhaps there aren't too many farmers in the position of my Nevada friends-they don't need a point 4 program to show them how to help themselves. They need a point 1 program which will let them help themselves. We are beyond the experimental stage. We have successfully grown cotton since 1950, on the small allotment of 110 acres. We have come up the hard way, and last year we had a quota of 2,324 acres. We are governed by what you know as section 344 (k). We can't be put on a 5-year average, obviously, or we would fade off the cottongrowing map for sure.

There is no reason for my saying more today. We have a simple problem and, to one from the South where you measure by thousands of acres in seeking allotments, it may not seem that a few hundred additional acres could mean that we survive. Without them, we succumb-and you'll have to come along a few years from now and show us how to develop some activity. You may even, then, provide us with several cotton gins, from Federal, State, and local funds; 64440-56-pt. 4-10

but the taxpayers of the West, Mr. Chairman, I assure you, would much prefer to finance their own futures when they know they can do it if you'll let them.

I strongly doubt, if such cost could be measured, that a few hundred additional acres allotted to Nevada would unbalance any program so as to ruin cottongrowers elsewhere. All we ask is enough to let our farmers have their own cotton gin— just one. I know the cottongrowers of Central Valley would like to see Nevada cottongrowers relieved of baling up their cotton for that long trek across the desert. A slight drop in price, and you can see that the growers would go broke without their own cotton gin. My southern friends in the Senate have been most courteous, always, in these problems, and I am confident, Mr. Chairman, that you will never regret assisting Nevada develop her new-found industry. One of the proudest moments of my life was the opportunity of showing our friends in Washington some small bales of cotton, grown in Nevada, ginned in California, and beautifully put up by our friends here, under the guidance of John Reynolds, your capable representative. They refused to believe Nevada can grow cotton; but we can do it, gentlemen, if you will just let us. Thank you for your courtesy.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any remarks by any of you gentlemen? Mr. SISK. As the Congressman from this area, Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a comment. I want to express my appreciation to Senator Ellender and to his staff and to Senator Bible for coming into our area and for coming into California, because, certainly, we feel that we have problems and we want, at this time, to express our appreciation for the fact that you saw fit to set this hearing, to come out and spend this time.

Thank you.

Mr. HAGEN. I wish to concur in those remarks.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The committee will stand in recess. (The committee adjourned at 5 o'clock.)

(Additional statements piled for the record are as follows :)

STATEMENT FILED BY CALVIN E. BREAM, SECRETARY, LOS ANGELES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

The agricultural committee of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce recognizing the importance of fruit, vegetable, and field crop industries in California and the urgent need for protecting these industries against pests, is actively concerned with quarantine and pest-control matters. For more than 30 years, the members of this committee which includes 150 farm and agricultural leaders throughout southern California, have worked with Federal, State, and local agencies for necessary pest control and quarantine work to protect valuable crops against outright loss and grade reduction by new pests.

CALIFORNIA'S UNIQUE SITUATION ON QUARANTINE PROTECTION

With mountain, desert, and ocen barriers against natural spread of pests, California farmers have a major advantage in their efforts to avoid higher production costs, loss of crops, and the quality reduction that would result if new pests became established here.

California farmers have strongly supported State and local agencies in quarantine and control work. Again they have been fortunate in having an alert State department of agriculture which has pioneered in quarantine work, capitalizing on our natural barriers and working tirelessly to intercept the pests which man transports by water, air, or land.

To further indicate the active work here in California on pest protection, note should be made that California alone among the States has an agricultural commissioner in every farm county who acts at local level as a quarantine enforcement and pest-control officer in cooperation with the State department of agriculture.

These local agencies, together with the Federal agencies active here, have saved California farmers many times the cost of their maintenance. As an example, California is still free of cotton boll weevil, a major cotton pest which according to USDA estimates costs the Nation's cottongrowers a 10-percent annual loss.

California's cotton crop last year had a farm value of $288 million which at the national loss rate would have cost growers here more than $28 million plus control costs. At the same time, the total cost of the border quarantine inspection work carried on by our State department of agriculture since 1921 is only slightly more than $10 million including capital costs.

CALIFORNIA INTEREST IN FEDERAL RESEARCH AND CONTROL

Fruit and vegetable industries through their own associations and through civic groups such as ours are actively concerned with the level of research and regulatory work maintained by Federal agencies. California, perhaps more than any other State, has evidenced a willingness to stand on its own feet financially where problems of a purely local nature are involved. We have not hesitated, on the other hand, to encourage the Congress and the United States Department of Agriculture to undertake work which is a proper function of the Federal Government.

Discussion of intergovernmental relations will not be undertaken here, but we would point out that for 1954–55, total governmental expenditures on quarantine and pest-control work in California were in the following amounts:

State of California___
Counties in California.
Federal agencies_----

$2,243, 000

1,440, 000 314, 000

In addition, farm industries made some direct contributions on control, and the University of California spent more than $1 million on entomological research.

NECESSITY OF FEDERAL ACTION

In several recent instances where California has made urgent requests for Federal action to keep threatening pests out of this State, many persons elsewhere have not realized that the needed action had to take place outside of California and, therefore, could not be undertaken by State or local agencies.

For example, the Mexican fruitfly, which was discovered nearly 2 years ago in Mexico just a few miles below our border, was and still is a major threat to some of our most important California fruit and vegetable industries. California officials took precautionary action on our side of the border, but eradication efforts could only be undertaken on the Mexican side through cooperative action by our Federal Government and the Mexican Government. Similarly, badly needed research studies on the habits and the controls necessary for this pest had to be undertaken outside of California in areas where the pest is already established.

For Oriental fruitfly, which built up in alarming numbers in Hawaii after World War II, considerable effort was required to impress on Congress and the United States Department of Agriculture the importance and urgency of steppedup quarantine work and research studies. Little information was available, for example, on control or on treatments which would still permit us to ship our crops if this pest hitchhiked to the mainland and infested citrus or others. Our State department of agriculture and the University of California undertook such study and action as could be pursued here, but again the research and much of the quarantine work necessarily had to be done outside California by Federal agencies.

CONCLUSION

With the tremendous increase in air travel from foreign countries to California points, and with the completion of a major west coast highway from Mexico as well as a direct rail connection into California from Mexico, farm and civic groups here are more concerned than ever with the maintenance of a strong, Federal quarantine program. Well-financed and well-executed Federal control and research must supplement local efforts if California is to continue to supply 46 percent of the Nation's commercial fruits and 24 percent of the vegetables. Groups here are aware of the support which members of the Senate have given both quarantine and research work. Members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry have been most helpful in this regard. The careful consideration and the appropriations made have been greatly appreciated by the agricultural people and organizations of the State of California.

OCTOBER 10, 1955.

Mr. DONN N. BENT,

Secretary, United States Tariff Commission,

Washington, D. C.:

This statement is presented at the request and in behalf of the United Hop Growers of California, Inc., a cooperative service organization representing the hop producers of California, with headquarters at Post Office Box 64, Sloughhouse, Calif.

SITUATION CONFRONTING THE HOP GROWERS

The hop growers of America, consisting primarily of those located in the States of California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, are now facing the very difficult task of adjusting production based upon war-end optimism to postwar reality. Brewers obviously expected a continuation of the rapid expansion of beer production that had occurred during the war and they urged growers to increase hop production to meet this prospective output. It developed however, that consumptive demand was much less than growers had been led to expect. Production of beer hit 91 million barrels in 1946-47 and remained around this level for the next 6 years, in fact to the present date. This unexpected beer production stalemate was partly the result of the general public reaction to the postprohibition variety of beer. It was mostly too mild for the older generations of beer drinkers and too bitter for the younger generation and for most of the increasing numbers of female consumers of beer and ale. The brewers met this situation by trying to make a beer that would appeal as strongly as possible to the expanding numbers of prospective consumers who had been brought up on soft drinks of many varieties. With this objective in mind, the brewers began to experiment with their mild and mellow product, involving the use of decreasing amounts of hops and supported by hopeful publicity to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. This effort has not been too successful as is indicated by the fact that beer production in 1952-53 (a better than average postwar production year) was about 500,000 barrels less than in 1946-47.

This miscalculation on the part of the brewers soon showed up in the form of surplus hops, the bane of a hop-growers existence. The presence of growing piles of unsold hops became evident in 1948, when the price of hops dropped from about 75 cents a pound to 30 cents or less. It was then that the growers decided to fall back upon the previously utilized Federal marketing agreement program as a means of balancing supply and demand. While the program was resonably effective, it tended to encourage the expansion of acreage and the gradual accumulation of price-depressing surpluses. So the marketing agreement was abandoned in 1952 and the hop growers are now engaged in trying to balance supply and demand by the painful process of reducing acreage and decreasing domestic production in the face of competition from increasing quantities of foreign hops flowing into this country as a result of the vacuum created by the self-imposed acreage reduction policy of the American hop growers.

HOP GROWERS DISTURBED OVER POSSIBLE TARIFF REDUCTIONS

It is because of the situation briefly outlined above that Pacific coast hop growers are much disturbed over the consideration that is now being given to the possible application of an ad valorem duty upon imported hops purchased at a price requiring a rate of duty of 50 percent or more of the present tariff. Grower opposition to the proposal, which is widespread, is partly due to uncretainty as to just how such a tariff will operate and a fear that the investigation on the part of the Tariff Commission may lead to lower tariff rates and the consequent importation of larger quantities of foreign hops to compete with the present depressing surplus of domestic production.

HOP TARIFF 45 YEARS OLD

Hop growers have enjoyed some degree of protection against heavy imports for the past 45 years. A 16 cents per pound tariff was imposed by the Tariff Act of 1909 and was retained in the act of 1913. In 1922, the duty was increased to 24 cents a pound and this rate has continued, with certain modifications, up to the present time. It is undoubtedly true that a 24-cent tariff afforded much more protection in the past than it does at present but it still