as corn, which we decided a while ago, since they have comparable value as feed grains, and stop this depression which is starting in our area as a result of the drastic reduction in the support price on grain sorghum. The so-called sound agricultural policy now in effect, if not changed, will make the depression of the early thirties seem like years of prosperity for our grain sorghum area. That might not be true of the United States as a whole, but it will be true out in our area, because it is a major crop for us, the same as corn is for the boys in Iowa. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Edwards? STATEMENT OF W. T. EDWARDS, ROTAN, TEX. Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Chairman, I am W. T. Edwards. Eeverything else has been covered. I would say that you have a complex problem, but when it gets too complex, we might look to some other industry and see if they have not worked out something that could be applied to us as, for example, the depletion of oil wells. It is a big problem. There is not one solution to it. It is something that it might do us good to take some of the good brains and let them do a study on some of these other industries, to see if they have not got their foot into the Treasury Department a little bit heavier than we have. The CHAIRMAN. Along that line, I wish more of the business people would join in trying to solve this problem, because everybody is going to die on the vine unless you get the farmer to produce food and fiber needed for our population. Mr. EDWARDS. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. How to do it is what I want to know. That is why I am willing to sit here until midnight, to get some ideas. Mr. EDWARDS. I think that we can look to oil. figured the solution to it, so that we could use it. They might have The CHAIRMAN. I hope that they give us some solution. (The prepared statement of Mr. W. T. Edwards is as follows:) PROBLEM The control of cotton production in a fair and impartial manner so as to adversely effect the smallest number of farmers, yet give greatest liberty for individuals and return a good standard of living. CRITICISM (a) Acreage control doesn't equal production control. 1955 production 14 million bales on 17 million acres. 1947 production 11,658,000 bales on 21 million acres. (b) Treat all areas alike-Lubbock County had 50 percent cultivated land in cotton in 1950. Stonewall County had 24 percent cultivated land in cotton in 1950. (c) Make it a permanent program with flexibility. Let the Secretary of Agriculture have the authority to move up or down, increase or decrease, but not the authority to remove controls. In 1950 we had a cotton program but in 1951-53 we had no program. Who can plan a good farm program under these instructions? (d) Have coordination in the Department of Agriculture at top level so we can achieve the primary aims of the farm program. The ASC restricts plantings on already cultivated land while the FHA will loan money to drill wells and irrigate more acres to give more production. This will be quite a sizable sum in the entire United States. (e) The farm problem is an American and not a political problem. (f) When preparing the ballot for the farmers call it acreage control and not marketing quota. In other words call a spade a spade. Fairness and straight talk creates confidence in the program. The above statements are the adverse criticisms that I make of the present program. We are in full accord on the program on the following points: (a) There is a need for a Government program, as farmers will not control production voluntarily and due to the nature of crop production we need some assurance of a market when we plant a crop. SOLUTIONS As a solution to the problem I suggest that we use one of the following methods: (a) Take the cotton acres during a base period and reduce acres from cottonproducing farms on a similar percentage basis as used in computing Federal income taxes, for example: Control man and land, with no substituting or manipulation of farms. No new growers until a waiting period of some announced period of time—3 years as an example. (b) Production solution-50 bales equals 1 unit: First unit of production receives 100 percent parity (c) Or give the farmers the same subsidy as the oil companies receive-a 271⁄2 depletion. The CHAIRMAN. Next is Mr. Morrow. Is he present? (No response.) The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. Stroope here? (No response.) The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. David present? (No response.) The CHAIRMAN. Is Mr. Smiley present? (No response.) The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Yarbrough. STATEMENT OF JACK YARBROUGH, LITTLEFIELD, TEX. Mr. YARBROUGH. Mr. Chairman, most of the things we have come up here to say have already been discussed pro and con. There is one little difference that I would like to suggest here on the law, that the bill that you are going to pass next when Congress convenes, we feel, up in our section of the country, that grain sorghum is a major crop, and in order to reduce this crop, that we should have considerable layout on acreage. We think up there that 20 percent would not be excessive. Today I noticed that most of them think that 15 percent would be all right, but I think that to really raise the price of this grain sorghum you should have at least 20 percent of the cultivated acreage out. The CHAIRMAN. Twenty percent? Mr. YARBROUGH. Yes. If you have more than that, it will take a long period of years, and the Government will have excessive storage problems, and excessive interest rates. And, in order to bring this down in line, I do not think that it will hurt anybody to lay out 20 percent of the cultivated acreage in order to get a higher price. Along that line, 85 or 90 percent of parity on grain sorghum will raise our net income until we can get along fine on it. The CHAIRMAN. Would you do that on a quota basis? Mr. YARBROUGH. Well, on grain sorghum, of course, you would not have to have any quota on that. In our county practically all of the acreage that is not on the cotton-allotment acreage is planted to grain sorghum. The CHAIRMAN. Do you not think that we would soon build up a surplus Mr. YARBROUGH. If you reduced the acreage 20 percent The CHAIRMAN. You have increased here in Texas, I notice, from the previous witness-you increased it from 5,451,000 acres in 1954, to 6,292,000 acres in 1955. It has been increasing right along. Mr. YARBROUGH. If you reduce that 20 percent, you pull it down. If you had that in soil-building practice, not to be harvested for any money or used in any way, it would not conflict with the beef industry or anything else. The CHAIRMAN. What caused this sudden increase in sorghum? Mr. YARBROUGH. Well, ordinarily these 20 counties that the gentleman talked about before me, produced cotton. I would say almost 90 percent of the 20-county area that produces one-half of the grain sorghum in Texas was in cotton. The CHAIRMAN. You lost out on the quota system? Mr. YARBROUGH. Under the quota system we lost approximately 50 to 55 percent of our cotton acreage. The CHAIRMAN. Then, the land that you did not put in in cotton, or the cotton land you lost, you put it into sorghum? Mr. YARBROUGH. Into grain sorghum. That caused an enormous acreage of grain sorghum. Of course, the soil is very fertile out there. We can raise enormous amounts of grain sorghum. The CHAIRMAN. That is the trouble, of course. Mr. YARBROUGH. That is the trouble. In order to raise that price, the people in our part of the country know that we have got to take out some acreage. I would suggest that it be 20 percent out of the tillable land, and that it be rotated in order that you could not put it on the poor land every year, that it be rotated over the cropland. It would not be a large police action to rotate that. The CHAIRMAN. If you were to accept a quota system of, say, 85 to 90 percent, as you suggest, I imagine in order to reduce the surplus you would have to take a much greater cut than 20 percent. I am just speaking out loud. I do not know. Mr. YARBROUGH. I am an old farmer and have been farming 40 years. In the early thirties we produced cotton and grain sorghum and hogs, and everything else, at a very cheap price. There is not any profit in producing a lot of it at a cheap price. Personally, and the rest of the boys in that part of the country, feel that they will go along, that we reduced the acreage in order to get a better price. The CHAIRMAN. Whatever is necessary to reduce your surpluses? Mr. YARBROUGH. The surpluses, yes. The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir. Thank you. Mr. YARBROUGH. We are highly in favor, of course, of the 90 percent parity on cotton. There is one more thing that has not been covered today that I would like to bring up for your consideration. We are up there in the irrigated belt. Our water is depleting, of course. We think that our water depletion should be given the same consideration as oil depletion in figuring our income. You know oil is depleted. It has a depletion allowance of 27.5 percent. That is over a period of years. As I say, our water is depleting at a much faster rate than usually an oil well does. We think that the depletion on water should be taken into consideration, as well as on oil. It is a natural resource that is used up. The CHAIRMAN. It is easy to figure it on oil. Do you pay for your water? Mr. YARBROUGH. We do not pay for the water. The CHAIRMAN. How would you figure out the depletion? Mr. YARBROUGH. A piece of land in our country, that does not have water under it, is worth approximately one-fifth or one-sixth as much as a place that has water under it. Over a period of years, if that water is gone, you lose approximately 80 or 85 percent of the value of it. In other words, if you bought a piece of land up there for $300 an acre that had water under it, and in 10 years it did not have any water under it, you would be hurt, the difference between it and the dry land, and dry land is around $50 an acre, which is something to be considered. The CHAIRMAN. If you give us the formula, we might consider it. You might let the Finance Committee consider that. Mr. YARBROUGH. The only formula that I could give would have to be something similar to the depletion on oil. The CHAIRMAN. That would be on the income taxes? Mr. YARBROUGH. On the income tax. The CHAIRMAN. All right; thank you. Mr. YARBROUGH. Thank you, sir. The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have had you with us. I am Jack Yarbrough from Littlefield, Lamb County, Tex., a 100 percent farmer. I represent, and am spokesman for a large delegation of farmers from my section of the State. We favor controlled acres with 90 percent parity on basic crops and 85 percent parity on nonbasic crops. In connection with this, I will state that the cotton acreage be retained at the same allotments as in 1955. That the surplus of cotton be sold on the world markets at less than the 105 percent of parity even as low as 90 percent to regain our lost export trade and to lower our surplus of cotton. We request the law be changed so a producer may not have to plant 90 percent of the allotment to keep his history on a crop. We request a program be started to have 20 percent of the cultivated acres of a tract of land in soil building practices, and that it be rotated on the tract of land. And in connection with this practice that grain sorghum be supported at 85 percent of parity. It may be necessary that some kind of payment for these acres be made from $20 to $25 an acre. The parity years should be changed to more modern times to include the higher prices of equipment, labor cost, and taxes, etc. I would like to call to your attention, the fact that farmers are the only people in the Nation that our Government is urging lower prices and income. Through export duties, depreciation allowances to big business, minimum wage laws, are constantly raising our cost and lowering our income. The United States Senate has a responsibility to we farmers in approving for Secretary of Agriculture a man who will set in the Cabinet and be our representative. Our good-will salesman. His statement to the Nation that farmers are receiving too much for their products is absurd. There is only 30 cents worth of cotton in the $5 cotton shirt that you are wearing, and only 2 cents worth of wheat in the loaf of bread. The State that he comes from has less than 12 percent cultivated acres, and he has no conception of the problems that we farmers have in trying to make a living for our families. Our income is constantly being cut by law and the others in the Nation are getting theirs raised by law. It is a case of a majority imposing on a minority. Is that good? In my section to produce an income of $10,000, it is necessary to have an investment of $100,000 or more, we think that in your price formula, some thought should be given to the amount of investment, and that a farmer should make a fair income from his investment. I would like for you to ask some questions on the problems that you are concerned with the new farm program, that I might give you all the information that I can from my section to enable you to give us the very best farm bill. I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of every farmer in my section, to thank you for the time that you have given me to present to you some of the problems that effect us in our day-to-day work in trying to make a living from the soil. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sides. Mr. G. T. SIDES (Olton, Tex.). I will pass. This witness represented the same county. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Moss? STATEMENT OF ROBERT L. MOSS, MEMPHIS, TEX. Mr. Moss. Mr. Chairman, I am Robert Moss from Memphis, Tex., up in the extreme southeastern portion of the Panhandle. I am a grain, cotton, sorghum farmer. I farm approximately 568 acres, approximately 200 of which is in cotton, and 358 acres is in grain sorghum. It is dry land farming. It is my desire to discuss a few things regarding some problems I feel need changing in order to protect agriculture and the economy of our Nation. I feel that we need a more realistic parity formula that would more nearly reflect the cost of production and cost of living when computing what parity of farm commodities should be. I feel that more consideration should be given to the cost of things we buy and less on past prices we have received when computing this formula. Since the most depressing condition regarding the bad position we find oursleves in today seems to be the Commodiay Credit Corporation-owned products (surplus), I would certainly like to see the barriers to foreign trade removed, especially the State Department's objections to our cutting prices of our commodities to meet and compete on a level with those prices of other countries. I feel that the Cargo Preference Act in Public Law 480 should be changed, so that these surplus agricultural commodities could be |