Acres diverted from production of crops being produced in surplus quantities should be used in such a manner that they will not cause surplus production of some other commodity or livestock, thus throwing another industry out of balance. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Asa Willis, step forward. Is Mr. Clifford Kaser present? Is Mr. Glantz in the room? Now, any of the names that I called, if any of you should notice. them come in or if they are desirous of filing any written statement with the committee, I would appreciate knowing of it. Is Mr. Barte here? All right, good. B-a-r-t-e? And Mr. H. S. Abbott? We will call you later; just remain where you are, sir. All right, will you give us your name in full for the record and your occupation, please? STATEMENT OF ASA WILLIS, TEXLINE, TEX. Mr. WILLIS. I am Asa Willis, of Texline, Tex. I live on a farm and make my living farming and ranching. Mr. Chairman and members of your committee, I think it is a great privilege for me to have the opportunity to tell you gentlemen our troubles. The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to hear you. Mr. WILLIS. I believe I will let you file the statement and I will hit the high spots. The CHAIRMAN. That is perfectly all right. You hand it to the reporter here and we will put your full statement in the record. Mr. WILLIS. It seems like I am in the minority group here today. I am in favor of 90 to 100 percent rigid supports. The CHAIRMAN. On what, on basics? Mr. WILLIS. On all farm commodities. The CHAIRMAN. All farm commodities. Would that include poultry, geese, chickens? Mr. WILLIS. I don't know how-I am not informed on that. The CHAIRMAN. But you see, when you say on all commodities, I know farmers that do not produce anything but that. Mr. WILLIS. I am interested principally in wheat, grain sorghum, and cattle. That is all I know about. That is my line. The CHAIRMAN. You would not want to limit this 90 to 100 percent on those products only? Mr. WILLIS. No; I would not. The CHAIRMAN. You would want to put them everywhere? Mr. WILLIS. I do not think that would be right. The CHAIRMAN. Are you familiar enough with a program, say, for other commodities that you do not produce, to tell us how you would handle them? Mr. WILLIS. No; I am not familiar with that. The CHAIRMAN. Well, you see, that is the great difficulty. Mr. WILLIS. I am familiar with the grains. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Let us take what you are familiar with, and give us your prescription as to how you would handle it. Mr. WILLIS. I do not think there is any way to handle it on an acreage any way to handle it except on an acreage control basis or quota. The CHAIRMAN. That goes for cattle too? Mr. WILLIS. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. How would you limit the production of cattle? Mr. WILLIS. You would have to limit that by limiting your calf crop. You would have to start on your calf crop. The CHAIRMAN. How would you do that? Mr. WILLIS. I have a plan for that but I would rather let Judge McDade The CHAIRMAN. How is that? Mr. WILLIS. I say, I do have a plan written out for that but Judge McDade has that and if it is all right I would rather let him present that. The CHAIRMAN. All right. We need all the information we can get. Mr. WILLIS. Well, we have a plan, I think, that will definitely cure the cattle The CHAIRMAN. Have you any specific recommendations for any other crops that you produce? Mr. WILLIS. Just acreage control or quota basis would be all right for me; I do not care how. The CHAIRMAN. I see. What would you do with diverted acres? Would you want that to be under a payment program? Mr. WILLIS. I am in favor of a soil-conservation program. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I know that. We have that now. The CHAIRMAN. Would you suggest anything else in order to compensate you, let us say, for diverting your acres? Mr. WILLIS. Well, I think you have got to satisfy the people. Some people they just scream when you take out some acres. The CHAIRMAN. I have heard a lot of them do that. Mr. WILLIS. But I do not think that hurts us at all. I happened to be farming back in The CHAIRMAN. You mean what does not hurt, the screaming or the cutting of acreage? Mr. WILLIS. No; the cutting of acreage. The screaming does not either. I happened to be farming back in the early thirties, and I sold my "Hoover" wheat for 25 cents a bushel in 1931 and 1932. If you remember, you will remember how we got along with that and then when the farm program was born, we hollered at that. We were on starvation. But then when that got into effect, we began to gradually come out of it. At that time I was farming 11,500 acres of wheat. The CHAIRMAN. How many? Mr. WILLIS. 11,500 acres of wheat and they cut me down to 6,000 acres. The CHAIRMAN. How many have you now? Mr. WILLIS. Pardon? The CHAIRMAN. How many have you now? Mr. WILLIS. I am in a different line of operation now. The CHAIRMAN. You do not produce wheat? Mr. WILLIS. I only farm one section of wheat now. The CHAIRMAN. I see. Mr. WILLIS. But then they cut me down to 6,000. Well, I diversified, and I drew a payment and The CHAIRMAN. You mean on your protected acres? Mr. WILLIS. On my protected acres and I planted sudan, run some cattle, and I am summer fallowing, which enabled me to grow a better crop next year. The CHAIRMAN. You will be surprised next year how a lot of people are objecting to a program of that kind. Mr. WILLIS. I understand that. The CHAIRMAN. In that they want these diverted acres cut out of circulation if possible, and make them nonproductive, just simply soil-bank fertilization. Mr. WILLIS. All right, I will go along with that. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Mr. WILLIS. Anything. You asked me how much I operate now? I operate The CHAIRMAN. The reason why I asked you is I was wondering whether you have the same sized farm, that was the only thing. Mr. WILLIS. No. I do own and operate 22,000 acres. The CHAIRMAN. At the present? Mr. WILLIS. Yes; 5,000 acres of farmland. I do not operate. I rent it out, you see. I have about 11 tenants and there is about 2,000 of that that is irrigated land and those fellows under the present squeeze, they just cannot make it. I would just like to read you a report here of one farmer. I have a statement The CHAIRMAN. We have got many of those. It would not be news to me because we have had many individual cases and, of course, it would be interesting to hear it. Mr. WILLIS. Do you have one on a milo maize farm? I would just like to read you this one with your permission. The CHAIRMAN. All right, go ahead. Mr. WILLIS. This man told me I could use his name, so I will give you the whole thing. As an example, I give you an exact accounting of a 320-acre farm owned and operated by Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Locke near Texline, Tex. This is an irrigated farm with 3 irrigation wells with 3,000 feet of concrete pipe. Mr. Locke has operated this farm for 9 years, and we consider him one of the best operators in the community. He is a very conservative person, keeps a strict cost record of his operations, and is a hard worker. Every man has a desire to own his home, but in Mr. Locke's case, he would have been better off to rent than to buy and improve a farm. Here is a statement of his-well, he has one for 1955 and one for 1954. It will not take but a few minutes. In 1954, he had 443,000 pounds of grain sorghums. He got $2.30 for that, stored on the farm. That brought him a gross of $10,914.41 and he sold $1.153.50 worth of bundles: $1,000 of baled feed; and $775 worth of pinto beans. It paid him a gross income from the 320 acres of $13,842.91. Here is his expense item over here. I do not think any farmer would deny any of it. His labor was $3,218.53; seed, $425.39; supplies, $278.31; cost of repairs, $1,083.31; fertilizer, $653.20; fuel and oil, $1,436.08; electricity for irrigation, $1,375.24; machines hired, $1,116.87; then comes the depreciation of $2,989.29 which every man deserves on his machinery, I think. That made him a cost there of $12,576.22. Then he is trying to pay for this farm, you see; and his land payment was $956.80; his taxes, $107.45; his insurance $198.01; his interest, $3,766.35, which is a lot of interest but that is money that he had borrowed when he tried to improve his farm. I happened to sell him the farm for $50 an acre 10 years ago, and he went down there with $5,000 in his pocket and he has drilled 3 wells and moved his house, leveled his land, and got into stages of cultivation. The CHAIRMAN. I notice an interest payment of $3,766. On what size of farm, how much does he owe in round figures? Mr. WILLIS. To be frank with you, his land payment--he has two different loans. He owes the local bank $50,000. You know he is a pretty darned good risk, they thought, or he would not be able to go to the bank and get that amount of money. The CHAIRMAN. What is the rate of interest he was paying? Mr. WILLIS. Six. And the other is a Federal land-bank loan, I believe, about $20,000. You see, at this time he owes over $200 an acre on that farm. Mr. WILLIS. That is correct. I will give you this year's operation. are Mr. WILLIS. $4,500. The CHAIRMAN. $4,533.06. He Mr. WILLIS. His 1955 figures, on the whole 320 acres is milo. made 3,000 pounds to the acre, approximately 700,000 pounds, and he started that on his farm. The farm loan is $1.61 there for which he got $11,270 this year out of his entire gross receipts, which he got nearly as much out of 400,000 pounds last year. His labor expenses were considerably reduced. I will not read that but anyway his total expenses were $9,797.48. His electric bill, you see, his pumping costs were $1,589.96 this year and he still lost $4,540.60; that is what he lost this year, actually. But I will add one thing there in that labor cost. He has 3 boys who work and he paid them $600 a year; that is added in the labor cost, and that was all taken out for living expenses. Now, gentlemen, that is an actual cost there. I do not know how we can get that. The CHAIRMAN. It is pretty difficult to take an individual like that who grows nothing but that one money crop to take care of him. I do not see how we can draft a law for grain sorgum alone. Mr. WILLIS. What would it figure there if he was getting $2 or even $2.50? The CHAIRMAN. I do not know, but if he cannot sell it and there is no market for it Mr. WILLIS. Cut that acreage down and jack that price up to where The CHAIRMAN. You mean cut his acreage down? Mr. WILLIS. Yes, cut his acreage down and give him a fair price for it; that is my contention. The CHAIRMAN. How much would you give him? A fair price would mean a good deal to service a $50,000 debt and cover his other expenses; you would admit that, would you not? Mr. WILLIS. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. You would not want to put him in the category of a man who does not owe anything? Mr. WILLIS. No. He is trying to pay for a farm. The CHAIRMAN. I understand that. But, you see, you would have to write a prescription for him, and a man who does not owe anything, who does not have to pay this $3,000 in interest Mr. WILLIS. Yes, I understand. The CHAIRMAN. That is the problem we are confronted with, and would come about, because you give us the case of a farmer which is not similar to that of the majority of the farmers. (The prepared statement of Mr. Willis follows:) I am Asa Willis, of Texline, Tex. I live on a farm and try to make my living by farming and ranching. I think this is a great privilege for me to have the opportunity to tell you gentlemen our troubles, for we do realize that you are the only body who can help us overcome this price squeeze that we are now caught in. We all know we are living in a subsidied economy. We farmers are caught with the short end of the doubletree and cannot keep up with other industry, with our present starvation prices. We, as a group, are the world's best potential customers for everything that is for sale, if we have the money. Present prices, as they are today, keep us from buying the bare necessities of life, which is not good for our national economy. I have recently talked with many farmers and ranchers in this area, and I find them highly in favor of 90 to 100 percent of parity on all farm commodities, livestock included. We strongly recommend that further studies be made with the view of developing ways of improving equity of the parity formula, and insist that any parity formula must include cost of production items. We are in favor of some sort of regulation, and above all, a strong soil-conservation program. The average rugged individualist, as they call themselves, has begun to shed the hair off his chest and can stand to be dictated to. We, as a whole, cannot get together on things- we don't like to sacrifice for the other fellow. I think it is up to you gentlemen to weigh the evidence you get at these hearings and work out a program that will give us some relief. I This price squeeze is not new to me. I started farming in 1930. In 1931 and 1932, I sold my Hoover wheat for 25 cents per bushel. Can you imagine a disgrace like that happening to you? Then the farm program was formed, but we are getting into the same shape now that we were back in the thirties. think we are entitled to a fair return on our investments, just as other segments of industry expect. They are a group who can demand and get whatever they think is necessary for interest, profit, and depreciation, while we are sitting here unorganized and at the mercy of the buyer. If we had a floor and a ceiling on our commodities which would keep us from going broke, we would be in a much better position. This would require rigid controls; I don't think anything else would solve our problems. I don't like controls any better than you or anyone else, but it looks like the only alternative. We screamed back in the thirties when they put acreage controls on but we found out that it was the answer-that, along with the soil-conservation program helped get things started. We are not asking for a handout-we are proud people-we like to do things under our own power, but it is impossible for us to survive with conditions as they are today. Everything we buy is getting higher, but farm commodities are getting cheaper. We don't expect the Government to keep buying and piling up great surpluses. I insist on controlling production-control it to a degree |