STATEMENT FILED BY ERLING TOFTELAND

I believe that the market on livestock should be controlled, so that hogs, cattle, or sheep can only go up or down 25 to 50 cents a day per hundredweight. As of now you can see days when livestock prices can jump up or down $1 to $2 a hundredweight. This is definitely legal robbery. I believe in the statement Presidential Candidate Eisenhower made at Kasson, Minn., that the farmers should have 90 percent of parity but is entitled to 100 percent of parity.

STATEMENT FILED BY CHARLES WINZER, HERON LAKE, MINN.

My name is Charles Winzer. I live on and operate a farm in Jackson County, Minn. Some of the farm projects are carried on in partnership with my father. We feed cattle for our major project and I raise 100 to 150 hogs each year. I am also a registered seed grower, having won two sweepstakes (purple ribbons) this year on my seed at the 1955 Minnesota State Fair.

For the past 3 years I have been vice president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation and, as such, I have been chairman of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation resolutions committee, so I feel I am as well qualified as anyone in Minnesota to explain the Farm Bureau resolutions or policy development process. Each fall the members of thousands of township farm bureau units gather to discuss problems affecting agriculture. Every member has the right to present any proposition he wishes. After being discussed, it is put to a vote of the unit members and if the majority approves, it then becomes a recommendation to the county farm bureau association. In matters of purely local interest, it is a resolution such as calling the attention of the township supervisors to the fact that the town hall needs a new coat of paint.

The county farm bureau asociation then considers the township unit recommendations and the ones approved by majority vote become recommendations to the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation.

The State resolutions committee receives and studies the recommendations from the various county farm bureau associations. Prior to the federation's annual meeting, open hearings are held where any farm bureau member can express his views.

The State resolutions committee phrases the county farm bureau recommendations according to its majority findings. These recommendations, in the form of resolutions, are then presented to the voting delegates at the federation's annual meeting. The recommendations which receive majority support of the voting delegates become resolutions of a local or statewide nature, and those of a national interest are recommendations to the American Farm Bureau Federation. For example, in 1953, 20 percent of the county farm bureau associations in Minnesota recommended a continuation of the 90-percent price-support program-in 1954, less than 5 percent of the county farm bureaus recommended continuation of 90-percent price supports, and under majority rule all the county farm bureau associations united in recommending the flexible or variable pricesupport program to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

masses.

STATEMENT FILED BY EVA WARSCHATKA, HERON LAKE, MINN.

At the present time the people of our United States are being treated as the What has become of the individual? Farmers are treated as agriculture the individual gets no attention. This sort of thing is leading to serious danger to all classes.

As a

In our opinion, the farmer, in some sections have been stirred up. general rule there is not as much dissatisfaction as certain groups want to make the general public believe. Why should the farmer continue to live off the Government? Why not put the price of the machine down to the level of our income? No one ever speaks of the high priced machine.

Last-if the farmer of this United States of America must get around in crutches we are going to buy our own crutches-we don't want them as a gift from the Government.

P. S. I just now spoke to one of the strongest defenders of the flexible price system and that party said: "Guess we don't have anything to say any more as farmers-it has gone out of our hands." And that is true. Renting land to the Government is receiving subsidies from a different approach. We are not interested in receiving subsidies so that we can buy labor and industries high price machines and cars.

STATEMENT FILED BY JAMES M. YOUNGDALE, BENSON, MINN.

There is no need to go into detailed statistics to prove that farmers are in a serious price squeeze. Farmers already know that this squeeze exists and have known it for a couple of years or more; and I believe that many political leaders are finally waking up to the fact that our farm economy is on an especially shaky basis.

The farm crisis is due in part to the fact that certain political leaders, such as the present Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Benson, are deliberately trying to ruin millions of independent farmers. If this ruination proceeds, we shall soon see a new generation of "Okies" packing up and hitting the road for California or some other spot where the grass seems greener.

Another reason for the deterioration of the farm economy is that the so-called friends of the farmers have been playing partisan politics for vote-getting purposes. The failure of the Democratic majority in the Senate to pass the stopgap 90-percent bill this last year and to wait instead until election time next year to pass this bill will deal a severe blow at the net income of all farmers who raise corn and wheat here in the upper Midwest.

Also, many of us suspect a logrolling situation between Texas Democrats who got the tidelands oil bill passed from the present administration in return for bipartisan support for Ezra Benson's flexible parity. Since the Texas Democrats have named the leadership in both the House and Senate, the effect of this logrolling has been to paralyze the Democratic Party from taking effective action under this leadership.

Assuming that there is a new determination to find a positive program for American agriculture among our political leaders, let me touch briefly upon a number of issues that are now under discussion.

1. There is much talk of "stopping the current decline" of farm prices or of "stabilizing the situation." This is like talk of stabilizing a drowning man at the bottom of a lake. We need steps to raise farm prices to a point that will give farmers in general the same level of net income enjoyed by city people. The first practical step toward this goal is to set farm price supports at 100 percent of parity under the old parity formula. Once this is achieved we can again

survey the situation for desirable changes in the program.

2. There is much concern over surpluses. Every effort must be made to move these surpluses into channels of consumption. The production payment feature of the Brannan plan should be adopted to cover perishables such as meat, poultry, and dairy products. This means letting market prices of farm products find their own level through supply and demand and paying the farmer the difference when the market price falls below 100 percent of parity. Consumers get the benefit of cheaper food, and the farmer gets income protection.

There are other outlets for a portion of our surplus. There are millions of people in Asia and Africa who are underfed. We should explore the possibility of the United Nations organizing a world food pool from which foods could be sent to these areas in return for materials and goods ordinarily exported from these areas.

Here at home a food-stamp plan and an expanded school-lunch program will help in utilizing our food surplus.

3. If we still face surpluses after expanding consumption in every way possible, then we should consider acreage restrictions along the lines of the soilfertility bank now under discussion. However, we must face the fact that acreage cuts mean further cuts in income for farmers and, therefore, are no solution for the income squeeze that is threatening to bankrupt farmers by the wholesale. Even a payment such as $10 an acre, as is currently under discussion, will still mean an income cut for the average farmer. Smaller farmers in particular are in no position to leave part of their farm idle; therefore, I propose that no acreage cuts be allowed on the first 140 acres of cropland on any one farm, thus giving a farmer with 160 acres or less a chance to utilize his entire acreage and still qualify for crop loans under the ceiling program.

4. Linked with the farm problem is the economic health of our entire economy Many economists are concerned because the apparent prosperity in our cities is based on credit and installment buying, so that city consumers are so busy pay' ing off last year's debt on a TV set or automobile that they are in no positic to make current purchases. As a result, overproduction is beginning to show up in many industries, in addition to agriculture. The root of the problem lies in the fact that our corporate industries are engaged in fantastic profit taking that inflates the selling price of consumer goods and thus restricts the ability of consumers to buy out of current income. Efforts should be renewed to restore a stiff excess-profits tax, so that the Government can siphon the excess profits into channels of consumption by way of public projects such as roads, schools, watershed development, hospitals, and other needed public improvements. At the same time, efforts must be expanded to raise the buying power of low-income groups by supporting farm prices at 100 percent of parity and by higher minimum wages for low-income city people and similar measures that will add to the national consumer demand.

5. I wish to thank the committee for their appearance here in the Farm Belt. May I suggest in the future that the committee try to spend 2 or 3 days in each city for hearings so that more farmers can be heard. There has been a good deal of grumbling because Congressmen have time to spend weeks on trips to Europe, but today only 51 farmers were scheduled to be heard here in Worthington. It would seem only fair that more time be spent studying and formulating a solution for the distress now affecting American agriculture.

With these observations and suggestions, I conclude my testimony. Thank you again.

STATEMENT FILED BY ALBIN YEAROUS, BALATON, MINN.

We members of the Lyon County Farm Bureau Legislative Advisory Committee find the following items of utmost concern to us as food producers and citizens of this great country for this and future generations.

FARM PRICE SUPPORTS

Due to the demand for increased food production in time of military activity resulting in mechanization of the agricultural industry, we find that most of the cost factors involved in this revolution are of a fixed nature, and no longer from the home industry source of yesteryear. With these facts in mind, we feel that support of basic commodities at a fair level is necessary. This support level must be a protective one-one that will encourage production for a consumer market while building a reserve of soil fertility for use in future emergency need. No generation of people has a right to deplete the soil of its productivity at the expense of America of tomorrow. Cost compensation to farmers for land retired from food and fiber production, with weed control and fertilizer benefits considered as costs, should be considered as an integral part of the price-support program.

International trade in agricultural commodities should be a prime factor in world peace. In this trade due consideration must be given to the possible reaction between nations to avoid ill will and international economic entanglements. Fair trade between nations is our best assurance of peace.

With actual use or consumption of food and fiber as the ultimate market place for these commodities it is imperative that every effort be made to develop and find consumer markets at home and abroad. To achieve this goal it will be necessary to have full cooperation of all departments of Government as well as of the American people.

Agriculture, industry, and labor are the component parts of a successful national economy. With any one of these segments contributing less, or taking more, than its share unbalances the whole economy. Labor priced too high; hours restricted to cause high-cost production; agricultural commodities priced too high or scarcity of common foodstuffs; business earnings for management too high, low labor wages and short working hours are all factors affecting the economic well-being of all America. It is the duty of Government to serve as a mediator and not as a dictator in policy formation whether it be in problems of agriculture, labor, or industry. Economic distress in any of these three may become a breeding ground for the isms plaguing the world today.

The pitting of labor against management or industry or agriculture for political purposes is a despicable means to gain party power in government.

Research in agricultural fields as well as in industrial fields is of prime importance to the economic well-being of the Nation. Expenditures by Government for research from the consumption or use phase is as important as from the prohetive phase. The strength and health of the country is dependent on research. Use of soil, plants, and animals determines what our food supply shall be. Research and education help find new avenues to raise our standard of living and of production for world betterment.

STATEMENT FILED BY INDEPENDENT TIMBER FARMERS OF AMERICA, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.

To make possible the survival of the small independent farmer-loggers of the Northern States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and of the Eastern and Southern States, better marketing arrangements are needed. Their complete lack of bargaining power in the case of pulpwood has their living standards at the lowest level in the country. About a million farmers market timber as their most important cash crop from farms which are generally lacking in open cropland. The following program is a minimum need for these people:

1. Amendment to basic farm legislation providing for current price reporting basic forest products including pulpwood, sawlogs, veneer logs, and rough lumber of major regions. Included also should be a parity price calculation using 194145 as the base period (the reasons for this are a lack of 1910-14 prices on the above and the gross disparity of raw material prices during the 1920's and 1930's).

2. Amendments to farm-credit legislation to permit Federal land banks to make loans for short-term production credit through production credit associations and Farmers' Home Administration offices for the independent logging operators and timber farmers; and for longer term capital loans to enable individual forest owners to withhold their timber from destructive cutting when markets are poor, and to establish forest-products cooperatives.

3. Investigation of pulpwood pricing by Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry to determine reasons for low prices and poor markets. Prices have dropped 15 percent in 11⁄2 years while costs have risen 10 percent.

4. Establishment of free forest products marketing exchanges. (Legislative program to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to establish such exchanges to improve marketing procedures, etc.)

5. Include forest products in any amendment to basic farm legislation providing for production-income payments covering the difference between parity and market prices.

6. Amend the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts to permit farmer-producers of wood and fibrous farm crops the right to organize and bargain collectively over the price, quality determination, and condition of delivery of material supplied to processing plants.

PRICE-SUPPORT PROGRAM

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1955

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY,
Des Moines, Iowa.

The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:10 a. m., in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Senator Allen J. Ellender (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Ellender, Holland, Humphrey, Young, Thye, Hickenlooper, Mundt, and Schoeppel.

Also present: Senator Thomas E. Martin (Iowa), and Representative Paul Cunningham of the Fifth Congressional District of Iowa. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order.

The Chair will recognize the distinguished senior Senator from Iowa, Mr. Hickenlooper.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Mr. Chairman and friends, it is indeed an honor, and I requested this privilege, I will confess to you, because it is indeed a privilege for me to present to all of you who are vitally interested in agriculture, some of the great Americans in public life today who are my colleagues sitting here at the table this morning. I am proud to be here with them; and I would like to present them to you.

Senator Ellender, of Louisiana, has had long service in the Senate and public life. He is a successful farmer himself. He is a great American, and a fine friend of mine, and I must confess that he is a Democrat, but he takes his hat off to no one in his devotion to his country. Senator Ellender. [Applause].

To his right is another great American, and public servant, a longtime, close, personal friend of mine. I think probably one of the rare differences we have is that he, unfortunately from my standpoint, is a Democrat. He comes from Florida, a sister State of Iowa, admitted to the Union in the same act. And so we have a bond in common. Senator Spessard Holland, a very good and close friend of mine. [Applause.]

And, incidentally, Senator Holland is a former Governor of the State of Florida, and is serving now, or completing his second term, I believe it is, in the United States Senate.

On his right is Senator Schoeppel, of Kansas, a former Governor of Kansas, prominent in midwestern affairs. For many years Senator Schoeppel, as many of you know, has been vitally interested in midwest agriculture. He is a great fine old friend of mine, of long standing, Senator Andy Schoeppel. [Applause.]

Senator Schoeppel and I have a political party in common. We are both Republicans.

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