STATEMENT FILED BY B. B. JONES, CRESCENT, OKLA.

This is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to personally express my opinion to this Senate Agriculture Committee on the support-price question. We farmers are aware of the information the Senate of the United States have been receiving, on what the farmers want and need, but the information you get at these meetings, from the farmers themselves, will prove to you which information was true and which was misleading.

I want to thank each and every one of this committee for the opportunity you have afforded the farmers of this Nation to testify in their own behalf.

My farming operation consists of 270 acres of cultivation land and 790 acres of pasture and timber land.

My wheat acreage allotment is 120 acres. I use the other 150 acres to raise feed to winter my cattle. I have 100 head of hereford breeding stock of good quality, but nothing registered except my bulls.

I could present my sales receipts of the cattle I have sold since 1951 showing the exact fall in price up to the present time, but I am sure that isn't necessary as it would not be news to this committee or any of the farmers.

My breeding stock at the present price is worth about $100 each. It cost me for feed and pasture $100 per year to keep the cow 1 year. I sell my calves at weaning time, or at 500 pounds. I think the market is 15 cents now. The calf would bring me $75.

I am losing $25 per head on each cow per year to produce calves for the feeder. This has been my experience for 3 years and I need not tell you that my banker will not continue to let me operate this way, nor would I care to. I lost onethird of my wheat this year due to drought and the other two-thirds made 7 bushels per acre of poor quality wheat.

I was opposed to the flexible-price-support bill when it was introduced. As far as it giving us a good sound farm program, I could see it doing only one thing, throwing the farmers into bankruptcy. As far as Mr. Benson was concerned, he thought that would be a good idea, to eliminate about half of the farmers.

If that is the purpose of that bill, I will say it is working, as it is sliding the farmers off the farms, and fast, and I believe 1 more year of the sliding scale and another drought and it will be the end to thousands of farmers and smallbusiness men.

I don't know how you feel, but I don't want to see that happen. We Oklahoma farmers don't need 90 percent of parity; we need 100 percent parity. The products we have to sell must stay in line with the things we have to buy. We need a floor of 20 cents under butcher cows, 30 cents under stocker and feeder calves and 20 cents under hogs. We can't operate at a loss and we can't make a profit without we have 100 percent of parity.

By their vote the farmers showed their willingness to have controls until the supply got back in line with the demand. Big business is making the greatest profits they have made in years and a lot of that profit is coming out of the farmers' pocket.

To keep my written testimony as brief as possible I will end by saying that I trust and hope that the Senate of the United States can, and will, see the plight of the farmers and repeal the flexible-price-support bill and restore at least 90 percent of parity on all farm products, when they convene in January.

STATEMENT FILED BY ED KIRCHER, KIOWA, Kans.

We must have a Federal land rental program.

Wheat-acreage reduction has gone too far in the wheat-growing States, because there are no alternative crops. The Corn Belt States should not be allowed to raise wheat. The sliding scale means slavery.

Why shouldn't the farmer, the backbone of this greatest Nation, have 100 percent of parity? Omit the word "rigid" in farm parity.

A food stamp plan for low-income families would help.

STATEMENT FILED BY DICK E. KOUPLEN, BEGGS, OKLA.

THE SLIDING SCALE VERSUS THE 90 PERCENT OF PARITY

I am 49 years old and have been a farmer all my life; my father was a farmer. The sliding scale farm program is more obsolete today than the horse and buggy was in the late twenties. This program tends to regulate farm price by the old law of supply and demand. This old law has been tried for years and years and became obsolete some 30 years ago. It was under this kind of a program that we could not give hogs away and fat steers sold for 3 cents per pound, cotton 5 cents, corn 15 cents a bushel, oats 10 cents a bushel and hay $3 a ton. These kind of prices did not pay for the plant food taken by the crops and was the results of the depression in the early thirties. I am sure no one, not even our Secretary of Agriculture, would like to see this happen.

To a college professor who has not had any experience as a farmer, the sliding-scale program looks good and workable, but to a farmer or anyone with practical farm knowledge the sliding scale cannot work. Ninety percent of farmers have financial obligations to meet. Some payable yearly, 5 years, and some 10 years For example we will take a family of 5 living on 160-acre farm with 100 acres in cultivation. This farm under rigid controls has a cotton base eof 25 ares. In purchasing this farm this man has obligated himself to pay $800 annually which he can do easily when cotton is selling for 31 cents which is parity today. However if the sliding scale goes into effect and the price of cotton goes down to 21 cents, this man must increase his cotton acres to 35 acres in order to meet his $800 payment.

So you can seen from this experience that the law of supply and demand will not cut down production but will increase it. In increasing the production of these crops the farmer must use many acres that are susceptible to erosion, that would otherwise have been planted to thick-growing soil-improving crops. As a result after this farmer has kept his children out of school most of the time and he and his wife has shortened their lives several years, when they pay the last payment on the farm.

At last their dream came true, they own the farm, but the farm has been cropped so hard to meet the obligation it will no longer make a living for the family, so the children must get employment elsewhere and the old wornout couple get a pension each month.

Under this kind of program the farmer is regarded as a downtrodden class of people humiliated under the fear of overproduction.

In adopting a farm program we must keep in mind that food production will continue to be a vital problem and we must never sacrifice our future agricultural progress at the expense of our present resources.

The 90 percent parity and controls has proven to be a good farm program, more farms have been purchased and paid for under this program without destroying the productivity of the soil, than during any other time. Under this program more farm homes have been made modern and the farmer and his family are regarded as the backbone of the Nation.

If we are to maintain our place as a leading Nation of the world we must have a program that will conserve natural resources and give the farmer his fair share of the Nations wealth.

The 90 percent parity with controls comes the nearest meeting these 2 requirements of any farm program.

STATEMENT FILED BY HAROLD KUEHNY, DEER CREEK, OKLA.

I am

I am Harold Kuehny from Grant County, north central Oklahoma. speaking for myself and also for a group of about 65 other farmers in my locality, who met last week to analyze our farm problems. We all live on our farms which average about 340 acres in size. We love the land and till it according to its capabilities using the best methods of soil and water conservation. Since experience has proved that these very important goals are better accomplished by the family-sized farmers rather than the large corporationtype farmers, we believe it is for the best interests of all the people in our great land that immediate steps be taken to make it economically possible for the small farmer to stay on the land.

Now, gentlemen, we are not going to bother you with a lot of statistics and insult your intelligence by reciting figures and proof of the cost-price squeeze which you already know. We are farmers-not economists-but we can feel that squeeze and don't like it. Only yesterday a young man in our neighborhood was forced to sell his farm at public auction after 15 years struggling to pay for it. This is no unusual case—just one of the latest.

By actual count about 75 percent of my closest neighbors are working on jobs off the farm to avoid the same thing. The leaders of organized labor have already made it plain, that, more farmers walking the streets of our cities competing for jobs create an alarming situation which must be avoided.

Our farm problem is most urgent and unless the present trend is halted, there will be a chain reaction affecting the whole economy. The question is: Do we as a nation want to follow the farmers into a great depression, lowering the living standard of all; or do we want to give the farmer an equal chance with the rest of our society? We would like to submit the following recommendations agreed upon at our meeting last week.

First: Although our rural population has dwindled to less than 15 percent of the total population, we feel that due to the great importance of our products we are entitled to a fair and capable representation in the executive branch of our Governmen. We recommend that your influence be used for the immediate replacement of the present head of our Department of Agriculture with a man who stands for the interests of farmers instead of putting out propaganda designed to turn our customers against us.

Second: Parity is fair for both farmer, industry, and consumer, and that for us to ask anything less than 100 percent parity would be unfair. We therefore request that 100 percent parity be placed on all basic commodities. We do not claim this to be a cure-all, but we do know that under the sliding scale consumer prices increase while the farmer goes broke.

Third: We recommend that a limit of $25,000 be placed on loans to any farmer for the purpose of price support. No real farmer is trying to get rich off the Government. We feel that, this is fair to larger farmers and yet gives the family-size farmer a chance to survive.

Fourth We recognize that a wheat allotment program of one kind or another may be necessary and are willing to accept any fair plan for keeping our production in line with markets. We all recognize the fact that we have so-called surpluses in America while at the same time millions will starve to death in the world this year. Is it bad to be the best-fed nation in the world with food produced by the most efficient farmers in the world? We think not. We thank God for his blessings of abundance, and at the same time wonder how long God's patience will last when we hear so much gripping about surplus and abundance. We believe that distribution of our surplus food throughout the world should be free of international politics. Therefore, we recommend that the Department of Agriculture be allowed to dispose of surplus food wherever there is a need and an opportunity without clearing it with the career boys in the State Department. We heartily endorse the movement to reduce surpluses by making grants to the Christian rural overseas program and/or similar Christian organizations.

We want to congratulate you men on this committee and our own Senators Kerr and Monroney for the work you are doing and we would also say "thanks" from the bottom of our hearts for the effort you are making. You have our utmost confidence and cooperation. We are sure that you are going to come up with something solid for the farmer and for America.

STATEMENT FILED BY HENRY LESCH, APACHE, OKLA.

I have been a farmer for a number of years and I certainly do not approve of the sliding scale on farm commodities. I'm sure we as farmers should have an equal price in regard to the product we purchase. The past few years a great number of small farmers in my community have quit farming due to falling farm prices and higher prices for equipment that he buys. When the farmer is squeezed to the point he has to quit, it will gradually reflect to other businesses, which wouldn't look good for our economy.

STATEMENT FILED BY WAYNE C. LILES, FARM DIRECTOR, STATION KOMA-KWTV, OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA.

After visiting with the Senate and House Agriculture Committee during the National Television and Radio Farm Directors' Convention in Washington, D. C., in June 1955, I became very interested in the effect that price supports might have on farmers. When the hearings now in progress were announced I immediately made plans to present on both my radio and television farm programs a discussion on the different types of price-support programs which might appeal to the farmers. I set up a series of programs which discussed the effect the various price-support proposals would have on the individual farmer growing the basic crops. The growers of livestock feed, the livestock producers, handlers, and processors, consumers, taxpayers, administration, and other nations which included all of the parties affected by the price-support programs.

The proposals discussed were rigid supports, flexible supports, two-price plan, direct payments, and no supports at all. The farmers were asked to express their opinion on which of these proposals they felt would best fit the needs of their particular type of farming. While the percentage of the 118,000 farmers in the State of Oklahoma which expressed their opinion on the proposal was small, we felt that a definite trend was established. I shall discuss them under each of the headings.

Approximately 50 percent of those expressing their opinion were in favor of rigid price supports. Most of them felt that if we were going to have price supports they needed to be as high as possible in order to afford maximum protection to declines in price. This group was not as concerned about the surplus products as those wanting the other types of supports. They represented in the main the producers of our basic crops on which supports are made.

On flexible supports approximately 15 percent of the group were for this plan. This group was very much disturbed by the huge surpluses piling up which in time they felt would defeat any type of support program. They felt that the farmers should take a part of the gamble on prices in order to move more of the products into the channels of trade. They felt that if enough of the surpluses could be removed the acreage allotments and quotas for farm products could be raised.

For the two-price plan we had approximately 25 percent of the farmers to express their opinion favoring this plan. The big concern of this group was the tremendous surpluses that have piled up under the previous two support plans. They felt that there was not enough difference in the two plans to have much choice between them. They felt that by supporting the price of the domestically consumed products and allowing the remainder to seek the feed price level or the world market level we could reduce the large surpluses. They, too, felt that by removing the surpluses the relaxing of acreage controls and quotas might be accomplished. Only a small percentage were in favor of direct payments. I think that this was largely due to the fact that they did not understand just exactly what this constituted and in fact that a number of farmers were reluctant to receive a direct payment which might mean that they did not particularly earn this payment. Very few felt that it would be possible or advisable for us to have no supports at the present time. Several producers of nonbasic crops felt that there should be supports on all products or supports on no products whatsoever. This is especially true on livestock, dairy, and poultry producers who are resentful of having to feed support grains, and sell nonsupported milk, meat, and eggs. In discussing the price supports with farmers, reading the mail that they sent in in answer to the programs I have presented, I have reached the following general points on price supports:

THREE GENERAL POINTS ON PRICE POLICY

1. There is agreement on the price-cost squeeze in agriculture and the relatively poor economic position of the farm group in our economy.

2. Changing prices, in a free economy, is the only way that consumers and producers have of telling each other whether they want more or less of a particular commodity. In neither agriculture nor industry have we devised a better system of keeping our production and consumption in balance than to let changing prices keep each group informed.

3. It is important to keep a sharp distinction in all price policy discussions between prices and income. What we really want is an improved income position for agriculture. High prices, if they involve rigid limitations of production,

may not provide the income desired. On the other hand, neither would lower prices, even though large amounts may be sold, guarantee a satisfactory net income. One important reason for this is that the prices of things farmers buy tend to be quite fixed.

Thus, because some flexibility in prices helps keep a better production balance in our economy, economists in general do not like to see any prices-labor, tractors, or cotton-too fixed or too fluctuating as they sometimes have been in agriculture. However, since neither fixed nor flexible prices may solve the income problem in agriculture, some additional program may become a part of the picture if farm incomes are to be raised to the desired level.

STATEMENT FILED BY BEN LUMPKIN, COWETA, OKLA.

Mr. Chairman and committee members, I am Ben Lumpkin, a farmer and rancher of Coweta, Wagoner County, Okla. I am also a member of the Oklahoma State Board of Agriculture. In that position I have become familiar with the great decline in farm incomes in Oklahoma that has taken place in the past 3 years in addition to my very acute familiarity with the decline in my own income and that of my neighbors. Our incomes have consistently declined and are still going down while our operating expenses have even increased, which widens the split between our income and costs and has all but eliminated the profit from many of our farming operations. Unless legislative measures are initiated to reverse the direction of both costs and farm income, bankruptcy for most farmers and ranchers is inevitable.

The sliding-scale price-support program has already reduced price supports and resulting incomes to wheat farmers and will cause them to decrease even more for the 1956 harvest. The application of the sliding scale price-support theories to commodities that do not have mandatory price supports is proving disastrous. I refer in my own case to the losses I have sustained on cattle due to the failure of Secretary Benson to use the authority he already has to adequately support the price of cattle. Legislation should be enacted to remove his discretion in supporting the so-called nonbasic commodities. His discretion with respect to these programs has cost grain sorghum producers about 60 cents per hundredweight, barley growers about 28 cents a bushel and producers of oats about 20 cents per bushel. The same story can be told by any farmer in Oklahoma who sells milk, who sells eggs or pork products.

My neighbors and I know that we cannot continue to farm under the kind of price-support programs now in effect. We strongly urge your committee to report favorably upon a program of price supports that will support the basic commodities of at least 90 percent of parity and to eliminate some of the Secretary's discretion with respect to the nonbasic commodities.

We believe that all farm commodities produced for sale by farm families should have price protection by whatever means are suitable to each particular crop, whether it be loans, production payments, or direct purchases. A conservation acreage reserve program retiring a portion of the tillable land from production would also be helpful in the price problem and would also assist in the very major problem of conservation of our natural resources.

STATEMENT FILED BY H. E. LUTTRELL, CHEYENNE, OKLA.

I am H. E. Luttrell of Cheyenne, Okla. I own and operate a farm consisting of 480 acres. There are five members in my family and each one does his or her part in the labor and operation of the farm.

The need for 100 percent parity should be apparent to every citizen in the United States. In general we are an educated people, and I wonder why there are so many who do not realize the importance of a healthy agriculture. In foreign lands where agriculture is not protected we see the chaos that that country is in and we certainly do not want to fall into old world conditions. Let me give you the facts and figures of my cotton crop for 1955, this of course is my cash crop. I have a 30-acre cotton allotment and that is small considering the size of the family I support. Fuel for producing the crop cost $60, seed was $98 (due to weather conditions replanting was necessary), fertilizer $40, hoeing $31 (not including labor of family) and the picking was $540, making a sum total of $769 cash expense. This does not include depreciation of machinery, but it does exclude the family labor. I received approximately $1,400 for the crop,