VII. When you gentlemen appropriate matching funds for the States for highway construction don't forget the farmer back in the red-clay hills who loses money waiting to get his cattle to market or can't get his milk in on time to catch the through milk trucks on the big highways. Fix it so a certain percent has to be spent for him. VIII. Our health departments are only interested in sanitation in the summer months. They let other milk produced under lower standards come on in the winter when milk begins to be scarce. The health departments are very hard on the dairymen in June and interfere with his corn plowing, haymaking, etc., thus increasing his costs as much as $1,000 per year, then when milk gets scarce they let class B milk from a long distance come in by tank trucks, and milk adulterated with milk powder, on the market. This is something our State legislature can do something about. It can make the office of the State health commissioner appointive by the governor and removed at his good judgment, and the dairy farmers can request his retirement at their will. Health inspection of milk should be under the supervision of the USDA. In conclusion I will quote you from one of my first cousins who is now about 42 years of age and who was born and reared on his parents' dairy farm which same is the oldest shipper to the Valley Bell Dairy in Charleston, W. Va. He says "Any dairyman who says he is making money today is a damn fool or a damn liar, one." Now I will add another, if he isn't a damn fool or a damn liar, he is a damn rascal. Senator HARLEY M. KILGORE, POINT PLEASANT, W. Va., November 5, 1955. Senate Office Building: The dairymen of the Kanawha and the Ohio Valley would greatly appreciate a Senate hearing on dairy problems at Marietta or Parkersburg. It is just too far for us to go to Raleigh, N. C., under the present labor situations and we don't know whether we will have anybody to milk the cows. The dairymen from Ohio, Fennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky haven't had a chance to get their opinions voiced. ISABELLE C. WILSON, Chairman of the Mason County Farm Bureau Dairy Committee. STATEMENT FILED BY RAYMOND BALENGER, PRESIDENT, WEST VIRGINIA FARM BUREAU, BUNKER HILL, W. Va. The livestock, dairy, and poultry producers of West Virginia are concerned and disturbed with the prospects of the next session of Congress taking action to turn back to the discredited high, mandatory price-support plan for the so-called basic commodities. Livestock, dairy, and poultry producers in West Virginia represent nearly 95 percent of all farm income in the State. Only about 5 percent of our farmers produce any of the basic commodities, or have received benefits in any form from the high price support and commodity loan program of the Federal Government. During the last 2 years we have made an honest effort to make the thinking of our West Virginia farmers known to our Representatives in the Congress. We continue to stand on these fundamental beliefs: 1. The high, mandatory, rigid price-support program was written and designed as a wartime incentive plan to encourage farmers to expand the agricultural plant and greatly increase production for wartime needs. 2. At the close of the war, it was evident that an adjustment would have to be made in the inflated agricultural plant, the Congress succumbed to the baseless cries of scared politicians, and failed to pass the needed legislation to make this adjustment the least painful to all concerned. 3. The direct result of continuing the high incentive program after the end of the war has been a constant drop in farm prices and net farm income, halted only by the Korean war months. We emphasize that this drop of some 30 percent in farm income was almost wholly produced while the high, mandatory price-support program was the law of the land. 4. We believe it is foolhardy and disastrous to the country as a whole to return to a program that produced the present problem. We believe the variable pricesupport program should be given a tryout. Our West Virginia farmers see little or no need of spending their already short supply of money on a trip to Raleigh, N. C., for the purpose of telling you our position. We believe this unnecessary since we pay a dollar a year into the American Farm Bureau Federation which we believe has done an excellent job of representing and protecting our interests before the Congress. Frankly, our farmers have been so nearly prostrated by the operation of the high, mandatory price-support program on wheat, cotton, peanuts, tobacco, rice, and corn, that they can ill afford the cost of the travel to your widely scattered field hearings. If any organized group of farmers in West Virginia differs with our organization on this issue, we have yet to hear about it. In fact, we are hard put to find any individual farmers in the State who are willing to even debate the advantages of the rigid price-support program. We have had discussions on this issue at the community, county, and State levels, and we have never encountered any sizable group in favor of the rigid price-support program. We can only conclude from these facts that our position on this issue represents the opinion of most farmers in West Virginia. A good example of how the variable price-support program has already worked from our standpoint, is the case of supports on dairy products. A lowering of the supports on these products by the Secretary of Agriculture a few months ago to the minimum level, has already resulted in significant adjustments in the total production of milk and milk products, a general increase and improvement in prices at the farm, and the Commodity Credit Corporation has stopped buying these commodities. This has already meant a reduction in the surplus stocks, which have been a drug on the market for these products. To further clarify our position, this is what we would have Congress do about the farm problem : 1. Leave the price-support program alone as it now stands on the books, with only minor amendments to perfect the program. This means giving the variable price-support program a tryout for the first time. 2. Adopt a soil-fertility-bank program designed to store up soil nutrients, rather than crop surpluses. While this program will likely be of little direct benefit to our farmers in West Virginia, it will have tremendous indirect benefits in the way of controlling diverted acres. 3. Take more steps to restore our world market for agricultural products. We believe the 30-percent loss in exports of farm commodities since the end of the war is one of the biggest factors in our present difficulties. 4. Give more consideration to the 75 percent of the farm producers of the country who do not produce the so-called basic commodities, and have long been penalized by programs designed for the favored few among the Nation's farmers. 5. Do everything possible to take purely political considerations out of solving farmers' problems. 6. Take steps to stabilize the costs of living and production, and put an end to the seemingly endless spiral of wage increases that are immediately passed on to the consuming public in the form of higher costs. We ask that this statement be read and made a part of the field hearing at Raleigh, N. C., on November 15, 1955. X |