or where it could be kept separate from other wheat. The Government selling price of this wheat if it should turn out to have a shortage it would set its selling price at a current 10 percent above the current floor.

The CHAIRMAN. I have heard 2 or 3 witnesses suggest that this highgrade wheat should be kept on the farm. What advantage would that have?

Mr. FRAZIER. My suggestion in keeping this grain on the farm was to keep it separate from the other, so that it doesn't get into some of our big storage places and get mixed and lose quality.

The CHAIRMAN. What would prevent a buyer from coming to you and buying your low-grade wheat and mixing it with a good grade of wheat? How would you prevent that?

Mr. FRAZIER. The farmer had stored, he would have to have the wheat bonded.

The CHAIRMAN. You know they are doing that?

Mr. FRAZIER. I understand they are doing it.

The CHAIRMAN. How could you prevent them from doing it?

Mr. FRAZIER. This wheat is bonded, stored on the farm there. How can he move that wheat? It has to be released.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that, but after you sell it and it is moved from your place, the buyer would be the owner of it. Mr. FRAZIER. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. What would prevent him from mixing it with lowgrade wheat?

Mr. FRAZIER. They are doing it now.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that. How can you prevent that? Would you put something in the law?

Mr. FRAZIER. The millers are doing it themselves and getting the right blend that way.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed. I was trying to get some help out of you. Mr. FRAZIER. If the Government has more than normal carryover or reasonable carryover in any or all areas, it would sell, trade, or give away for relief to domestic or foreign to the best interests of the citizens of the United States as a whole.

I believe that this would insure a stable supply of products the consumer wants and would not burden our farmer with a big surplus the consumer does not want.

Perishable fruits and vegetables, livestock, poultry, and other basic perishable products when in large surplus would be purchased by the Government to be given to school lunches and other institutions as it now is done at a price of average cost of production to the producers. This is to try to keep the producer from having too much loss and adjust to the market demand. The Government should always buy the same quality products the public demands most.

In other words, we have got, the Government goes there to buy, we can't have incompetent buyers who will buy a low quality product and pay a high price for it.

This program should encourage farmers to produce what the consumer demands, and not for the Government to buy. Government aid for research should be increased to find more and better quality products the consumer will demand.

I believe my proposed program can be started under our present acre allotments by changing to bushel allotments using the county

averages we now have and modifying them as seems best as the program worked out and gradually we would not need allotments. The change from acres to bushels may cause some dissatisfaction but we have a lot of dissatisfaction with the acreage allotments. In the meantime we will need a lot more conservation practices to help the farmer out while getting his crop production stabilized. We cannot have a big change in our farm program, as it would only lead us into unknown depths that would take longer to recover from.

STATEMENT OF JOE JAGGER, MINNEAPOLIS, KANS.

Mr. JAGGER. I am Joe Jagger, a farmer and stockman at Minneapolis, Kans. I have a statement I would like to present to your secretary. The gist of the statement I will give at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything new in it that you are going to tell us about?

Mr. JAGGER. I think so.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed. Let's hear something really new.

Mr. JAGGER. If there is any cheap and easy and popular way of solving this problem that faces us, which is the surplus, I am sure you gentlemen would have found it. Therefore, the program I am advocating is not particularly pleasant but it is a thing we are going to have to do.

We are going to have to have a program which will get us out of our present trouble without leaving us a lot of new troubles. As an example of two of those which I think are pretty good, it is drought relief program of selling surplus Government grain to farmers to maintain foundation herds of livestock going on in the drought area at this time, and the pork buying program which will not leave a price depressing surplus to haunt us in the future.

The CHAIRMAN. How about the big supply of milo and the big supply of other feed grains?

Mr. JAGGER. We are going to have to feed them to our livestock. The CHAIRMAN. I understand that, but do you think the Government should undertake all that? Wouldn't it, if the Government attempted to sell all the grain it now has in storage, be costly?

Mr. JAGGER. Yes; it will be impossible to do that. The other thing we are going to have to do is to accept, the farmers are going to have to be willing to accept less money for their crops at this time to get the surplus down. That will not be an easy thing to get across. Some of the things which might help us also to get that surplus down would be more aggressive export program based on quality standards, changed quality standards, which I understand some work is being done on. Then research on new markets.

If we could find some new use for a hundred thousand bushels of wheat a year it would eventually go a long way toward eliminating the surplus.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. You mean a hundred million.

Mr. JAGGER. Yes; I am not used to handling those big figures. The other thing we need to tide us over on this program is a soil conserva

tion program of diverted acreage and some payment to the farmers for these acres which are diverted from production.

I think there is no other way of maintaining our income at this particular time and also eliminating our surpluses. As long as our customers know that there is 1 entire year's supply of wheat on hand, if we don't raise a bushel of wheat next year there is plenty to meet their needs, we are not going to be in a good bargaining position.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

(Mr. Jagger's prepared statement follows:)

As I have read newspaper stories of the hearings this committee has held in various parts of the country it appears that there have been cases of intemperate criticism of some of the current agricultural policies. It is not my purpose to give a blanket endorsement of any person or policy, but I think that the things in the present policy that are sound should be continued.

In the first place, there has been a great deal of conversation about the farmer not sharing in the national prosperity. One does not need to read the newspapers to known that the farmer is in the midst of a squeeze, with prices of farm products going down and costs and taxes going up.

What is our situation here? The difficulties in this area have been aggravated by the drought. Poor production of wheat in some areas, a general shortage of likestock feed, and a near failure of feed grains is definitely lowering farm income in this area.

The important thing is: What can be done by Government programs to help up out of our difficulties without adding to our problems in the future?

As a general policy, I think that governmental programs designed to aid the farmer should aim at solving the actual problem that is causing the trouble, instead of treating the symptoms. One program that seems to me to be designed that way is the drought relief program of selling stocks of Government grain at reduced prices to farmers to maintain foundation herds of livestock. Another is the pork-buying program which is set up so that it will not leave huge stocks of pork products in storage to depress prices at some future date.

The classic example of a program that leaves us with as many problems as it corrects is the wheat program of high rigid supports and the storage of surplus. In this wheat country we cannot escape the fact that this program has built up a surplus equal to an entire year's supply of wheat.

In going over my account books for the postwar years that I have been farming and comparing it with the carryover of wheat as of July 1, I find that the highest prices were received when the carryover was lowest, and the lowest price was received when the carryover had been highest regardless of the level of the support program. Our customers know now that if we do not produce a bushel of wheat next harvest, there is on hand enough wheat to meet all of their needs and still have a carryover the following July 1. That does not leave us in a very good bargaining position.

Since our problem is the surplus which has been built up by the high rigid support program, what should be done to get rid of it? Certainly, going back to high rigid supports is not the answer. I am sure that there is no easy way to get our surplus down to a manageable level. Some of the things which I think would help are:

1. A more aggressive export program based on selling quality wheat. This would have to include more realistic grading standards which are based on milling and baking quality. It would require policing of exports with the goal of reducing or eliminating the blending in of offgrade wheats, foreign material, and other objectionable adulterations of our good wheat. This country does produce and could sell a high quality of wheat which would command a premium on the world market.

2. Greater emphasis on the production of high quality wheat. The penalty on poor quality varieties in the loan program is a step in the right direction. 3. A vigorous research program aimed toward finding new markets and new uses for farm products.

4. A stepped up soil conservation program with increased payments for returning land to grass and soil building crops.

I believe that these programs are the kind which can give us some help now and will in the long run solve our problems in the future.

STATEMENT OF ROGER HEIM, MODOC, KANS.

Mr. HEIM. I think everything has been said that I have in my statement, but I am from a wheat area and I want to reaffirm a couple of points that have been brought out here.

Last winter the millers scoured our area for good quality milling wheat and paid a premium of 25 to 60 cents a bushel for that wheat. That is proof enough, isn't it, that there is no surplus of the quality product that we raise?

We feel that we have been penalized too severely in our section of the wheat area. We believe that we should be given equal consideration and that if this feed wheat was separated from the food wheat and went into the proper channels that it should that we could raise for the markets a quality product and then any of our flexible program or any of the programs would work because our price would be above this floor our Government sets under the product.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what we are working on. We have a bill before the Congress now to accomplish that very thing.

Mr. HEIM. We appreciate that.

The CHAIRMAN. Quite a few witnesses have made statements, the preceding witness and the one before that, we have the idea now. Mr. HEIM. It doesn't hurt to keep plugging.

The CHAIRMAN. No; the first thing you might do, though, is not clog the record so that nobody else will read it. There are only four of us here and if you present Senators with a record so big that it is just cumulative and a repetition of everything else you might not get them to read it, so let's try to stick to matters that will solve the problem and something not brought in before. If you do that I will appreciate it very much.

Senator YOUNG. These farmers here talk about the same language as ours do in North Dakota on this wheat quality.

Mr. HEIM. We just can't feel there is a surplus of our product. It seems the surplus is hanging over our heads as a wedge. We don't blame you fellows but we blame the nonwheat areas that produced feed wheat for the Government instead of for the market. We are proud of the product we raise and want to produce it for the market and not for the Government.

Senator YOUNG. Don't you think we will have to change our export standards?

Mr. HEIM. Dr. Shellenberger made a statement recently that there is a big demand for good quality wheat in our foreign markets. We don't have that wheat to sell. We hardly have enough good milling wheat for our use. We have hog feed. Germany said when we tried to give them this wheat, "We don't want it, but we will buy a good quality milling wheat."

The CHAIRMAN. I understand certain parts of Kansas raise some of this poor quality wheat. Where is that?"

Mr. HEIM. We will take our blame for that.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought I would bring it in to show

Mr. HEIM. Through this past high rigid program we have a class of farmer-thank God we don't have many in Scott County-they produced for the Government and not the markets and they raised the kind of wheat that would produce bulk instead of quality.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you do with those people in Kansas? Mr. HEIM. We are eliminating them out our way as fast as we can. The CHAIRMAN. Are you doing it legally?

Mr. HEIM. We are trying to police our own area. That is about all I have. There is one thing I want to point out, that it is worth the time to come down here and see the serious way you fellows are approaching our problems, and we cretainly appreciate it.

The CHAIRMAN. We appreciate that.

(Mr. Heim's prepared statement follows:)

The way this meeting is being conducted is a big step in the right direction. I feel that by eliminating the pressure groups, you will get honest facts and proof of what is happening to agriculture in this area, from the men that are actually tilling the soil. I believe that all lobbying should be outlawed as far as the farm programs are concerned because they have only worsened the situation. Whenever our governing body needs information let them call in a few farmers from each area.

This agriculture situation is far too serious to be batted around as a political vote-gathering issue. It is serious in a way that is vice versa to the thinking of the majority. We have two kinds of wheat, food and feed wheat. If we were to separate the two, we would have less than a 5 months' supply of food wheat. Isn't that a critical situation to be in, in this atomic age? In the past feed wheat has been supported at the same price as food wheat and the result is the feed wheat is lying in Government storage, costing the taxpayers $365 million a year. Last winter the millers scoured our area buying food wheat direct from the farmers and paying a premium of 25 to 60 cents per bushel. Isn't that proof enough that there is no surplus of food wheat?

Out here in the summer fallow belt we can raise a high quality milling food wheat, yet the present farm program has penalized us the most. Our acreage has been cut to 26 percent of our land devoted to wheat. This has created a terrible wind erosion hazard by trying to carry summer fallow over the winter. Dr. Shellenberger of KSC recently made the statement, that there is a big demand for high-quality milling wheat in our foreign markets. We don't have enough milling wheat for our own use so we have nothing to sell our foreign customers.

I think one of the answers to our wheat problem is to put the feed wheat in the proper channels, the feed market or dump it in the ocean. Just quit hanging it over our heads because we are not responsible for it. If that were done we could produce food wheat for the markets. I don't believe the Government should be a market for any agriculture product except in case of war or an emergency. The average size farm in our area is 800 acres and this farm has a wheat acreage allotment of 220 acres. The average cotton farm is approximately 57 acres with a wheat allotment of 15 acres. Percentagewise the cotton farmer has more wheat acreage to produce feed wheat than we do to produce food wheat. If there was no Government support price on wheat in the nonwheat area, would they grow wheat? I don't believe so. So why not eliminate the support price on farm products in areas that cannot raise a quality product?

The national agricultural problem is complicated and will take time to be worked out. All we summer-fallow wheat farmers ask is an equal chance to produce our share of the food wheat for the markets while it is being worked out. We don't feel that the past and present farm program has given us this equal chance because feed wheat has been in competition with food wheat. Feed is feed whether it be corn, milo, oats, barley, soybeans, or wheat.

I am not condemning our present administration because they realize that in order to maintain the best and strongest nation in the world, agriculture has to be kept sound. Our present administration has accomplished a lot the past 3 years, and I don't think we could expect them to right all the mistakes in 3 years that were accumulated in the previous 20 years.

The CHAIRMAN. There is a gentleman on my right who has wanted to testify and has new ideas, the man with the mustache. Will you come forward? You have been wanting to testify on something new. What is your name in full?