ing this land into grass, making substantial payments, it would go along with our soil conservation and in turn in case of a national emergency we could plow up this grass and go back into full production and at the present time the program which I have outlined would cut down pound production and not per unit animal numbers in the United States.

In closing, I would like to suggest if you haven't already seen the movie People, Products, and Progress of 1975, I urge that you do see it and I do not see how our Government could at any time reduce production.

Senator THYE. I would like to ask a couple of questions. Mr. Beck, how many acres do you farm?

Mr. BECK. 510 acres.

Senator THYE. What is your herd?

Mr. BECK. Holsteins.

Senator THYE. Milking?

Mr. BECK. Yes.

Senator THYE. What market do you have?

Mr. BECK. I have my own market, a processing plant at Junction City, and I buy from other producers.

Senator THYE. When you say "process," do you make it into butter? Mr. BECK. No, sir; fluid milk.

Senator THYE. In other words, you bottle it.

Mr. BECK. Right.

Senator THYE. You pasteurize it, when you talk about processing? Mr. BECK. Yes.

Senator THYE. What do you charge a quart?

Mr. BECK. Twenty cents a quart at the present time.

Senator THYE. And you produce sufficient feed on your unit to feed these 80 cows?

Mr. BECK. Not entirely, Senator. In a normal year we would, but the last few years we have not.

Senator THYE. Did you own this property or are you renting any of it?

Mr. BECK. No, sir; I am a veteran of 5 years' service and I went into debt and bought the property and have gone to grassland farming and find that it is paying off and along with some other questions you asked other witnesses here this morning on the 75-percent drop in fluid milk, I would like to say that I do not believe that the drop in parity there is the cause of a downfall in price as much as the seasonal cause, because we do have seasonal price fluctuations. Senator THYE. Do you have to manufacture any of your milk into butter and powder?

Mr. BECK. Yes.

Senator THYE. You have to have a safe margin.

Mr. BECK. Yes, we have a surplus outlet in Junction City.
Senator THYE. That goes goes into what kind of processing?
Mr. BECK. Cottage cheese mostly.

Senator THYE. You are not dependent on butter or cheese?
Mr. BECK. No.

Senator THYE. Your cottage cheese is the same as fluid milk, it has the same customers, so to speak?

Mr. BECK. Yes.

64440-56-pt. 5-9

STATEMENT OF HAROLD E. RALL, MENLO, KANS.

Mr. RALL. I am Harold Rall from Menlo, Kans., northwest part of the State. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the committee and I have a prepared statement to leave for the record.

I would like to cover a few points to give emphasis on something already covered and bring out a few that probably have not been touched on.

The CHAIRMAN. Suppose you stay on those that have not been brought in.

Mr. RALL. One thing we can gather from the testimony here today is there have been a lot of people testifying for their particular commodity group. A lot of people naturally here in Hutchinson have testified for something that would help wheat farmers. I am thoroughly for that. Then we have a group from my part of the State who testified for northwest Kansas because we have a situation where we cut production and we have had to cut it again the last 3 years. From that we can gather that there is no farm program that we can write that will treat everybody fairly and I think we ought to conclude from that that the less regulation we have the less people's toes we will step on and any program that gives us less regulation is certainly along the system that built up the American economy and made this country great-free enterprise.

Farmers are the most independent group in the world and I think a lot from the testimony here today, a lot brought out they don't like controls. Which of the programs that have been tried or suggested comes the nearest to doing that? I think high rigid supports certainly haven't done it. People who say that farm income has dropped under flexible supports aren't facing the issues. Flexible supports on basic commodities started July 1, 1955. That is the first time we tried them on basic commodities.

We had some flexing of supports on dairy products and I think, at least I read, that the average price received for dairy products was better in September 1954 than it was in March just before supports were dropped from 90 to 75 percent of parity.

Senator THYE. Have you made any study from a nationwide standpoint to determine what might be the factors that entered into it?

Mr. RALL. I realize one of the things there was that we got a little favorable publicity. I say "we," but I am not a dairy farmer, but the dairy farmers did.

Senator THYE. From what source?

Mr. RALL. Consumers found out Government wasn't holding prices up there. That caused a trend toward more consumption of dairy products.

Senator THYE. In order that we do not lose sight of two factors that might have played a part, take into consideration that you had an extremely warm summer, the Nation over, and a hot summer increases the consumption of fluid milk and ice cream. It also has a tendency to bring about a drop in the production per animal. How

ever, the main factor which you must not lose sight of is that they had an extreme drought in the New England area. When we left Washington in August the ground was brown in much of the Virginia and eastern Pennsylvania area. This was also true in the whole New England area, I understand. Therefore, production was down. Now, in the areas where surpluses have to be manufactured into butter and powdered milk, such as in the Midwest, there we had an increase in production and the prices have not come back. For the man in these areas producing milk for processing into butter or cheese, prices have not come back to where they were in March or at the time when the drop from 90 to 75 percent was put into effect.

I only say this for the purpose of keeping our eye on the beam so as not to lose sight of some of these factors. It is an easy matter to say it is all being corrected but when you get to the underlying factors you find the actual situation quite different.

Mr. RALL. Senator, I appreciate a little of the problem in Minnesota because previous to the time I returned to northwest Kansas where I farmed before I went to the service, I worked in northeast Iowa, which is similar to a great deal of Minnesota, but I think there is one thing that times have changed. We need to recognize the fact that we priced ourselves out of a butter market through the years. We educated or we encouraged people to eat oleomargarine because of the bad publicity, high price, et cetera, and buttermen, the man that produces dairy products for strictly butter market lost something he probably never will regain. So it seems to me that a certain amount of shift at least needs to be made in that field.

I know that in northwest Kansas we used to milk cows, some people still get a little income from that. It is very small but percentagewise it sometimes amounts to almost enough to create a surplus that is price-depressing. I don't think we can take all the credit for or lay all the credit to dropping supports to the better situation for fluidmilk producers either.

Another example of not exactly flexing price supports, but about a year ago some poultry producers went to Washington and wanted Secretary Benson to support eggs. He refused to do so, or didn't have the authority to do so. Today the price of eggs is approximately twice what they were last year. I will admit it is easier to shift production in poultry than it is in beef cattle and hogs but what I want to bring out here is that the little experience we have had with flexible price supports I think has been at least not bad. We have raised our surpluses by rigid supports and here is a point no one has brought out yet.

Some of these surpluses are grown by people who otherwise wouldn't farm were not the incentives so high and on land that was brought into production in other areas which people in Kansas are not too familiar with, poorly drained land, tilled and brought into production, reclaimed land in the West, and sometimes it was only 2 percent, but it was enough to create a surplus and sometimes it doesn't take much surplus to drop the price quite a bit.

I think that in all fairness to the law that is now on the books we should give it a fair trial. I don't think it is a cure-all specifically for wheat. There are a few things I would like to see put into the law to correct some of the evils that there are now. Higher grain standards would be one thing for a good quality product. We have toler

ances for mixtures and so forth that simply shouldn't be. There ought to be a pure, much purer quality for grade No. 1 wheat, for example.

Another thing that I think the long range, as one gentleman mentioned, should be more than 20 cents a bushel for high-quality milling wheat. Another angle is foreign trade and using the importing countries' shipping to transport those products would be a great help.

Another one that I don't think anyone mentioned is encouraging farm storage by more differential between the farm storage payment and the warehouse payment.

At the present time total handling charge of storage amounts to about 23 cents a bushel for warehouse storage and about 14 cents for farm storage. In our part of the State in the last 6 or 8 years we have seen a tremendous lot of large warehouses go up that pay themselves off by Government storage in about 32 to 4 years, sometimes even less. That is a good real-estate investment for any man. I think if we encourage more farm storage we keep quality wheat from being contaminated and encourage farmers to keep that on the farm and keep it out of Government storage where it is a glut on the market. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

I am going to have to caution witnesses again. This is the fifth time I have done it. It is now 20 minutes to 6 and we have been sitting here almost 2 hours longer than we expected. We have a reporter here who has been working for about 9 hours. I am going to again ask witnesses, if they don't have anything new, to just file their statements, please. As far as we are concerned, I can stay up to midnight, but we have to go to Oklahoma and start there at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.

STATEMENT OF THELBERT CHILDERS, UNION STAR, KANS.

Mr. CHILDERS. Mr. Chairman and fellow Senators; I am Thelbert Childers, from Union Star, Mo. I don't represent anybody except my local community. I own and operate 572 acres of land and we have a wide diversification. We are strictly for 100 per cent of parity for that part that is consumed on the domestic market.

Gentlemen, we are willing to give, if we produce more than that; we have talked it over and are willing to give it to the needy people of the world if it is necessary. We can survive on the domestic markets and we are going to have to due to the fact that our world markets have so much foreign aid that they are self-sustaining.

Now, about surpluses, that is one of the topics bypassed here this evening. We have had lots of war materials that were surpluses and I would call wheat and farm surpluses war casualties. I would like for the consumers to set the amount that we should keep in storage of all farm commodities.

I think we should have reasonable reserves but I would want the consumers to be satisfied. I would expect the Commodity Credit Corporation to move wheat, to buy new-crop wheat and move old, I mean, resolving whatever they bought, nothing would get old. That is one place our commodity credit, it is a great institution and we don't want to lose it but we need to control that.

The CHAIRMAN. Where would you control it?

Mr. CHILDERS. We would take his wheat, the new wheat, I am talking about the part we would consume in this country, our domestic needs. I would have a hundred percent of parity for that.

Now, where I would role that to, I would change it each year on wheat, use that as, that is what we have studied mostly this evening. I have raised wheat and helped my father thresh when I was a small boy. That needs to be moved into channels of trade and new wheat replacing it so that we will not have old wheat like is being stored up. I came by a mill where 25 million bushels stored at St. Joseph, Mo., deteriorating. They say it is not fit for human consumption. I would like to see you gentlemen here write a bill that we could dispose of enough down to what we call reasonable reserves and take off from there.

If we had to give it away to the farmers for feed, that would be all right. Now, I heard a lot of people say put it into feed channels. The price of feed controls the price of hogs and the price of cattle on the average. I am for strict rigid controls for corn, I have complied with corn acreage and with every control all the time on my farm. I know a lot haven't but I am strong for rigid acreage control. I am strong for cross compliance. And the Commodity Credit Corporation will not be responsible for only the part that is for domestic needs. The rest of it, if there is any value it will seek the world level. I wouldn't call it a two-price system, I would call the second one very flexible, whatever we could get. You fellows have been kind to us this evening and we have got our backs to the wall. Sunday morning I went to get the Sunday paper. Three years ago there were 15 in the bundle. I wanted to know how many there were in the bundle now. There were five. We are in a pinch. When my neighbors are getting along I am getting along. My farm is not paying. We want a hundred percent of parity for that part that is consumed in America and if we have to we will give the rest away.

Now, as far as markets are concerned

The CHAIRMAN. Who is going to do the giving, the farmers?
Mr. CHILDERS. This is a war casualty, as I stated earlier.

The CHAIRMAN. What I am talking about is future production. Mr. CHILDERS. Who is going to? The Government will not loan a cent on the farm products in excess for domestic needs.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that, but you say that there would be some giving of the excess.

Mr. CHILDERS. The farmers will give that.

The CHAIRMAN. You might but others may not.

Mr. CHILDERS. If it is written in the law where will they go with it? The CHAIRMAN. Is that all you have?

Mr. CHILDERS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF D. G. IDLER, KIRK, COLO.

Mr. IDLER. I am David Idler.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you anything new to offer, Mr. Idler?
Mr. IDLER. It is a little different.

The CHAIRMAN. I hope it is. I am not joking about this.

Mr. IDLER. I have a little, a short statement.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, let's see if it is new.