have been lost. Trade barriers that prevent the flow of our products should be revised. Acreage controls should be planned wisely so that the farmer that can grow a certain crop efficiently is not penalized too heavily. On the acreage-control subject, we should plan wisely so that we are not just shifting the crops from diverted acres from one section of the country to another. The proposed soil-fertility bank is a step in cutting our surpluses but I think it will be doomed if it is on a voluntary basis. I think the law would have to tie in with compliance of other programs. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Mr. Fredrickson. Is Mr. Fredrickson present. (No response.) The CHAIRMAN. We will then hear from Mr. Leo Freking. STATEMENT OF LEO FREKING, HERON LAKE, MINN. Mr. FREKING. My name is Leo Freking from Jackson County, Minn. I am grateful to your committee for this opportunity to express to you, what I believe are the views and feelings of the more than 700 farmers who comprise the Jackson County Farmers Union, which I had the privilege to serve as president for the past 6 years. These conclusions have come from the numerous discussions at board meetings, gatherings, conventions, and so forth, held during that time. Jackson County is one of the rich, typically agricultural areas of the Nation. The second highest income county in Minnesota excluding the industrial counties of the Twin Cities and Duluth. With its widely diversified type of agriculture and its fertile, black soil, it should be a farmer's paradise, and yet what do we find? We find farmers and even farmers' wives taking on sideline jobs, part-time or night jobs along with their farming operation to maintain their income. It is an unprecedented situation. We find farmers forced to ignore good farming practices, planting large acreages and even whole farms into corn in the hope of hanging on until conditions improve. We find a relatively few cooperating in the farm price-support program because with reduced acreages of corn they have no way to turn for income, with cereal, feed, and oil crops supported at such a low level and with margins so narrow or nonexistent on livestock and livestock products. We find our price-support program breaking down because of a policy of "Too little and too late" both in the Congress of the United States and in the Department of Agriculture. And finally, gentlemen of this committee, we find more farms sold the past 2 years than in the previous 10 or 12 years. Our farmers would get an immediate shot in the arm if Secretary Benson and his assistants would resign or were recalled immediately, and replaced by a Secretary of Agriculture sympathetic to the needs of Mr. and Mrs. Average American farm family. A Secretary who would do the most he could under the law, rather than the least he could get by with. Our farmers would perk up if the Secretary's advisory committees of meatpackers, processors, grain dealers and aristocrats were dis solved and replaced by men of agriculture who know farming, its problems and achievements. Our farmers would regain complete confidence in the American family farm way of life if the Congress would immediately restore price supports at a profitable level rather than at the fatal level of 60, 70, or even 80 percent of parity. Average prices today linger around the 85 percent level. Keep them there for a couple years and you will have plenty of disaster. Our farmers want minimum price supports of 90 percent of parity on all storable commodities, provided that production is sufficiently controlled or the surpluses removed aggressively enough to raise the market of the commodities to an average of 100 percent of parity. If this is not done then price supports must necessarily be set at 100 percent of parity to make a fair price available. Controlled production of food when free people through the world are starving is contrary to Christian principles and distasteful to farmers generally. It can be condoned only if by so doing plant nutrients are returned to the soil for future generations faster than they are being used. Any controlled program must therefore be tied in closely with an aggressive soil-building program. Government land leasing, conservation acreage reserve, or soil bank are all acceptable to our farmers, but never forget any plan is doomed to failure through lack of participation unless the payments are sufficiently large to compensate the loss of income due to planting within allotments. Your committee received a lot of testimony on dairy supports yesterday in St. Paul. We farmers in Jackson County are thankful that the American market is still available to the producers of beef, pork, lamb, poultry, and eggs on an equal basis. Anything less than that is pure and simple economic prejudice. We are pretty sick about the current price of hogs as we were about the price of poultry and eggs only a year ago. There is not much consolation in making a profit one year only to lose it the next in an erratic free market that fluctuates all out of proportion to the supply. Making full use of the Secretary of Agriculture's power to purchase surplus pork to stabilize the market at least at the cost of production, coupled with an aggresive promotional program to farm people for next year and ensuing years relative to the need for reducing or increasing supplies in line with demand, is the least we expect of any Agricultural Secretary. Programs of farm credit and farm storage are in dire need of revamping. I trust others have or will touch on them in their testimony. Thank you very kindly for your interest and thanks to your host committee for selecting me to testify. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Freking. Mr. FREKING. Thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Mr. Gabreilson. Mr. GABREILSON. I would like to relinquish my time to Mr. Smit. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. STATEMENT OF EGBERT SMIT, LUVERNE MINER, MINN. Mr. SMIT. My name is Egbert Smit, and I live at Luverne Miner, in Rock County. I farm 167 acres, raise hogs, sheep, chickens and feed cattle. I thank you for having the privilege of testifying before you. I am convinced that that second greatest industry in the United States, which is agriculture has been definitely sought out by our President and his Cabinet, and forced through, that has brought us in the predicament that we are in today. In the President's platform he has assured us, the farmer, not only 90 percent of parity, but full parity, which upon his oath of office, swore before God and man, that he would do all in his power to carry out. What he did do when he got into power was to pick on agriculture, and by using the press and radio, informed the consuming public, that the food was too high priced, thereby setting the consumers against the farmer, which today has brought me to the point where I have to borrow money in order to operate my farm. At the same time the rest of the economy enjoyed the greatest boom in history. The party in power claims the honor and says prosperity has never been greater and shall still be greater in 1956. Why are we as farmers deceived and treated thus? Therefore presenting these facts gives me the proof that he has sinned against God. We as farmers have been asked to testify, and to bring to you ideas how to improve the agriculture program. What good will it do if the President does not repent. If he will truly repent and get right with God and man, then and then only can we expect a blessing on these hearings. Is money the god of America today, based on efficiency at the expense of human suffering, or is freedom, equality, and justice for all the important thing. I have heard a lot about surpluses. I don't believe there is any real surplus. We as farmers are called of God to produce food for man and beast, we are not only to produce food for the American people, but wherever a brother is in need. The church I belong to just recently has been approached to help feed the starving in Germany and Arabia. Let's get this food to the people that need it before we are weighed in the balances and found wanting. The Constitution of the United States is founded on Christianity. Each session of Congress is opened with prayer. Then let's practice our Christianity. In a speech made by Adlai Stevenson at Sioux Falls, S. Dak., he stated that one-third of the babies born in the world starve to death. If the food were equally divided among all the people of the world we would all go to bed hungry every night. During the First World War ex-President Herbert Hoover was appointed Food Administrator in Europe, and a program was carried out to relieve the starving and suffering in Europe as a result of the war. The Armed Forces also gave away food. The result was a greater blessing from God which resulted in bumper crops and greater prosperity for the whole economy. Then we had a change and the administration did not move the food. The result was a depression and a great drought. That was not a dry cycle. That was the hand of God. The Second World War came along. Again we had a Marshall plan. Food, material, medicine was sent abroad to relieve the suffering and starving. Again the boys in service buttered bread and fed the hungry. The result was a great prosperity and bumper crops in America. God says, "Try me and prove me and I will pour you out blessings so that your storehouses cannot contain them." Again we had a change and those in high command did not move our products. Again we are experiencing a drought and agriculture is in serious trouble. This is not a dry cycle. That is the hand of God. Let's help the poor in this country so that children won't have to go through garbage cans and die of malnutrition. Let's send more to the starving in other countries. Let's expand the school-lunch program. Let's care for the aged and those that are in dire need. Today we are living in an atomic age. Our country is spending millions of dollars for radar stations and bomb shelters. In case of an all-out atomic war, which could happen in this country, are we going to seek protection in these shelters and starve to death. Has anyone thought about food? When I think of the methods of storing food, we should adopt a program to store dried milk, canned meats, and so forth, in every city, town, and village. I believe this should have been done long ago. A program like this could probably mean that we would have a shortage of food. I would also like to bring to your attention that no food has been offered for sale to foreign countries. Why has not this been done? I believe in a food-stamp plan. I believe in a national acreage-reserve program. If we have an increase in population of 7 million a year maybe we will need it in 5 years or 10 years. I do not believe we should have acreage allotments if grain that is in surplus is shipped in from other countries. I also understand that the Army has a 3-day supply of food. That this Nation has only a 3-month supply of butter. I do not think we have a surplus of butter. In regard to hogs I have 80 of them that are ready for market and I need not tell you what trouble I am in. I recommend that when any of the perishables are in trouble that the Government step in and buy that 5 or 10 percent or whatever it may be just as the market shows a weakness, instead of when the market hits the low point and then as a speculator step in and try to strengthen it. I recommend 100 percent of parity based on the old formula of parity, for all the products that are raised on a bona fide family-type farm. I recommend that a nation as large as the United States should at least have a 2-year supply of food in reserve to carry us over in an emergency. To produce just enough would be dangerous for the dear Lord only controls the weather and could well mean a shortage and some of us would have to go without. What is it worth to us if we can go to a store and buy anything we wish to eat? To raise on a scarcity would mean that we would have extremely high prices and not enough food to go around. I would like to ask two questions: What has the farm program cost the Government the first 20 years it was in operation? The CHAIRMAN. $1,200 million. Mr. ANDERSON. That is correct, with an additional $900 million the past 2 years, approximately $2,100 million. The CHAIRMAN. Asking questions will not solve the problem. Will you proceed and tell us how to solve the problem? That is what you are here for, Mr. SMIT. I received a newsletter from H. Carl Anderson, and he gave me the information that in the 20 years that the farm agriculture program was carried out it cost $1,110 million, and in that same time the Government had gotten a return of 10 times that amount of money in income taxes from the farmers. And the small-business man who is dependent upon agriculture. What I would like to bring out is, Has the farm program really cost very much money? I thank you. [Applause.] The CHAIRMAN. It is now 12 o'clock, and the committee and the staff have been invited to a luncheon by the Kiwanis at the hotel. We will return here at 1 o'clock. May I say this, you folks who will be witnesses this afternoon have heard a lot of testimony this morning and I hope that you will look over your statements, and try to revise them in order to give us some new thoughts in this matter. We have heard quite a few witnesses here who have used the same approach. We can save time, and we can also hear all of the witnesses if you will shorten your statements or release your time. Usually, at the beginning of a hearing this way, quite a few questions are asked in order to develop the subject. I think that the subject has been fairly well developed, and it is my hope that the witnesses who testify this afternoon will confine themselves to methods of trying to assist in the working out of a good farm program. I can assure you that with your evidence we will try our best to do so next January. Senator HUMPHREY. Just before we recess I received when I arrived here four letters that were asked to be incorporated in the volume of the record of this testimony. I shall not read those letters, but merely identify them. One is from New Richland, Minn., from Mr. Jensen; one from Lakefield, Minn., from Mr. Tollman; one from Cannon Falls, Minn., from Mr. Terwilliger; and one from Reading, Minn., from Mr. Horberts, and the statement of Mr. Horberts is one that refers to 2 or 3 items that are headlined. I ask that those all be printed as if given here in the testimony. (The letters referred to are as follows:) Senator HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, CANNON FALLS, MINN., October 22, 1955. Minneapolis, Minn., DEAR SIR: We wish to urge you to suport a program of 90 percent of parity on dairy products. The payments to be made directly to the farmers with production payments. We also think there should be some controls. We suggest a program of diverted acres, the land to be left idle or used for soil-building programs. There to be no crop harvested on these acres. The payments to be made at the rate of one-third of the farm average yield for the diverted crop times the support price of the diverted crop. Sincerely, CLIFFORD TERWILLIGER, President, White Rock Farmers Union, Local No. 483. |