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water on it right now or saying I would not be for it, but when you designate a plan as self-help and you get the powers of legislation in the hands of 15 people to control the entire milk industry and have the Government advance them $500 million, that is quite a sum of money.

Whether a plan like that could be passed by Congress I do not know, but it requires serious consideration. Such a plan as that I do not believe could be passed in January, as I suggested a while ago when we talked about enacting legislation to take care of the basics.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, there are other things concerning the dairy industry of this State that I feel I would be qualified to bring before you that would have national significance, but I have with me another witness and if it is your pleasure I would like for him to take over.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Any questions to be asked of Mr. Abercrombie?
You may proceed, Mr. Campbell.

STATEMENT OF PHIL CAMPBELL, COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA, ATLANTA, GA.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to explain my position to you. Until January I was in the same condition as my predecessor; I was a dairyman only. Since that time I have had the duties of commissioner of agriculture of the State of Georgia and I speak both as a dairyman and in my official capacity as commissioner of agriculture.

The CHAIRMAN. You ought to be able to give us some good ideas. Mr. CAMPBELL. I will solve all the problems for you. I would like to be very brief. I know we don't have too much time.

The CHAIRMAN. You take all the time you want to if you give us the plan.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I will give you 3 or 4 specific recommendations. First I would like to bring to your attention something that I am sure the people of the United States as a whole and the press do not realize about milk and price of milk, and that is that insofar as prices are concerned milk has what we call a slow price curve. By that I mean that in a depression or deflated times when prices of the entire country are low that the price of milk never goes as low, and in inflated times such as we have now the price of milk never goes as high because we do have this slow price curve. You may be familiar with what I am talking about.

I will proceed from there and say we are in an inflated time and the price of milk, comparatively speaking, is not nearly as high as other products and the best illustration I can give is that when I went into the Army in 1942 I could milk 25 cows and hire 3 full-time laborers with the production from 25 cows. At the present time I cannot hire 1 full-time, competent, good laborer by milking 25 cows. I give that as an illustration to get to these recommendation which I have which are these

The CHAIRMAN. What really occurred is that the cost of distribution has gone up considerably.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Cost of distribution is up, but you have the other picture of inflated times with a high-price level in the United States

with this slow price curve regardless of distribution costs. You have that picture. But the Federal Government is doing some things which I think should be expanded quite a bit to aid the dairy farmer in his efficiency in order for him to do a better job than he is doing presently, and one is the fight on disease among cattle as a whole and dairy cattle particularly.

You have the national brucellosis eradication program. It is only 50 percent financed. The National Association of Commissioners of Agriculture, which you know, recently met in New Orleans and it was passed unanimously at that time by the national association to recommend that the appropriation be doubled to $30 million for this program in order that a full brucellosis-eradication program could be carried out throughout the United States all at the same time.

The CHAIRMAN. Similar cooperative basis?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes, on a cooperative basis, because I do not think that you will get the active interest within your individual States if they are not putting up part of the money.

The CHAIRMAN. My good friend, Dick Russell, is chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations.

Mr. CAMPBELL. We will confer with them.

The CHAIRMAN. I happen to be on that subcommittee myself, and we have quite a job to get the little knickknack that we are now getting. We will do our best to get more.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think you will be hearing from this group of commissioners of agriculture throughout the United States regardless of their party affiliation.

The CHAIRMAN. More power to you.

Mr. CAMPBELL. But that is a very important matter.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish to state further, while I am on the subject, that my good friend to my left, Senator Young, whenever the Republicans are in power-I hope they do not come back-but when they are in power he is chairman of that subcommittee and I want to say he has done noble work in geting appropriations not only to fight brucellosis, but for agriculture as a whole. We have no better friend in the country than Milton Young. I will tell you that.

Senator YOUNG. I cannot possibly get into an argument with my Democratic friend on agriculture. Thank you so much for your kind comments.

Mr. CAMPBELL. This is the second year we have had Senator Young visit us in Georgia and we are going to try to get him to come every year because we certainly think a lot of him.

The next point I would like to bring out is that from the standpoint of cheap milk production, which everyone in the United States seems to want if you read the press, is that we should have considerably more of the research money which is being spent at the Federal and State research stations spent on development of grasses and roughages which will give our livestock a better rate of growth with regard to beef and higher yields of milk per cow. We feel as though not nearly enough money has been spent in research on grasses because actually grass and roughage production of milk is much cheaper than grain production, and we feel the research money has not been spent on grass as it should be.

The best illustration is New Zealand where they spend probably 90 percent of their research on grasses rather than grains. I am not

talking against the grain section of the United States. I am speaking of milk production. There they don't even feed grain to some cattle, but there are plenty of other uses for grain.

Here we have developed one grass in Georgia under Federal-State agreement which is coastal Bermuda grass, and we feel a grass of equal value should be developed for our winter grazing and we believe that can be done if work is done on it.

Another item is the Dairy Herd Improvement Association's testing work. I noticed that a previous witness suggested that probably more technical assistance could be given in some areas to some of the farm people. This is one place I feel as though money could be well spent which would prevent maybe future money being spent in another manner by the Federal Government, in that dairy herds could become much more efficient if there were wide testing of the dairy cattle throughout the United States with regard to their production under their Dairy Herd Improvement Association program.

I do believe that if the Federal Government could see their way clear to financing half of this program that you would find the States would finance the other half. As it is today, the dairy farmer, what few do, pay the expense themselves and as a result only a small percentage of the dairy cattle in the United States are tested according to production. The dairy farmers do not cull cows as they should based on production. We could get an increase in the efficiency of our milk production if we were carrying on a fulltime culling program of our dairy cows.

The only way I know this can be done is through Dairy Herd Improvement Association program, and my recommendation is that the United States Department of Agriculture finance half of this program and the States the other half in order to make these technicians' services free to the dairyman.

Now I would like to, if the committee will permit-that is all I have on dairying. Other things have already been said which cover the subject but I would like, with your permission, to make one brief recommendation on allotments of our basic crops if I may get out of the dairy field.

There are 2 or 3 of my friends who have allotments in the basic crops that have brought this to my attention and I think it is worthy of consideration. I haven't had time to check with all of the farmers, but as long as there are surpluses on hand I believe that this recommendation certainly is due serious consideration and it is this: That under the procedures as now set out, if a man does not plant his allotment he is doing the Federal Government a favor.

If he doesn't plant his allotment of a crop which has a surplus on hand he is doing the Federal Government a favor, but the Federal Government penalizes him as a result of doing them a favor by taking his allotment away because he did not plant it.

My recommendation is that a man's allotment not be reduced or taken away from him by his failure to plant it as long as we have surpluses on hand. If we reach the point that there is no surplus on hand, then any rearrangement or the present system could be used which would allow new people to come into the business with regard to that particular crop whatever it is.

The CHAIRMAN. Somebody suggested this morning, I think, and I believe at other meetings, that it might be well to freeze the present acreage on each farm. What would you think of that idea?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I don't know what-what do you mean by freezing present acreage?

The CHAIRMAN. All cotton acreage. For instance, if you reduce them any further, whatever they get this year shall be the minimum; this crop will be the minimum of what they obtain in the future.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I prefer what I am saying better than that. I haven't had time to think that entirely through, but at the present time if a man does not plant his allotment he can turn it back into his county office and still retain it, but that means that someone else then plants it and he must plant it 1 year out of 3.

My suggestion is as long as you have surpluses on hand that he be allowed to retain it and not have to turn it in so that someone else plants it. The Federal Government wants reduction in total production of these allotted crops.

The CHAIRMAN. As I remember that provision of the law, if the transfer is made as you suggest, the man who transfers it does not lose that allotment but gets it back the next year.

Mr. CAMPBELL. That is right. That is the case now.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you want to make that permanent?

Mr. CAMPBELL. No; I am recommending that there be no allowance to transfer.

The CHAIRMAN. You would be surprised at how many Congressmen want that provision and all allotted acreage used up.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I beg your pardon?

The CHAIRMAN. You would be surprised at how many Members of the Congress wanted that power to transfer so as to have all allotted acres planted.

Mr. CAMPBELL. But when you get back to your individual farmer I think that if you check your individual farmers who have been in production of these crops, that you will find a lot of them will plant only half of their allotment or 80 percent because of the particular conditions prevailing on their farm that year, and that you might get an overall reduction of 10 percent in your cotton production during 1 year, or in your tobacco production or wheat or peanuts, as a result of the individual farmers knowing that they could retain their allotment even though they don't plant it.

I would say that as soon as you do not have a surplus on hand then it is perfectly all right to transfer this to someone else. By transferring it to someone else and increasing his allotment you are saying "we want you to produce more and pay you for it and take it out of the United States Treasury."

The CHAIRMAN. This transfer was made because of the fact that so many farmers got too small acreage allotments. That is why it was done; to cure the evil that has been complained of here this morning, to give to the smaller farmer a little more acreage.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I am not sure that increase has been going to the small farmer. I think most of the increase has been going to the larger

areas.

The CHAIRMAN. That was not the intention of Congress.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I understand that; but I don't think it works that way. I understand the reason for it.

That is all I have. I appreciate the opportunity of appearing.
The CHAIRMAN. All right. Any questions?

All right; tobacco is next. Mr. Dorsey Matthews and Mr. Ernest Strickland. Will you gentlemen be seated? Will you each give your name and respective occupations, please?

Mr. MATTHEWS. I am Dorsey Matthews, from Colquitt County, Ga. I am strictly a dirt farmer in every respect.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I am Ernest Strickland, from Evans County; a dirt farmer and a small oil dealer. Very small.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean you get it out of the ground?

Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir; dealer, I said; distributor.

The CHAIRMAN. I did not hear that part.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I am not one of those gentleman farmers. I live on a farm.

STATEMENT OF DORSEY MATTHEWS, MOULTRIE, GA.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I stated I am strictly a dirt farmer from Colquitt County. If I could have come today and testified before you gentlemen in my work clothes that I wear at home, I would have made more impression than I will make coming like this. But there is a lot of difference between a dirt farmer and a white collar farmer and a city farmer, and I want you to thoroughly understand that.

I am strictly a dirt farmer and my hands will bear me out. I lost my right hand 4 years ago on a circular saw, trying to produce lumber to repair my buildings on my farm.

Since I am from the largest tobacco producing county in the State, the tobacco situation is what I am interested in. Up until this year we have been pretty nearly satisfied with our tobacco support price that we got for our tobacco. This year, due to several conditions and things, our price for tobacco produced in Georgia was $5 a hundred across the board, grade for grade, less than last year and the year before. That wouldn't be so bad under our tobacco-support program if our cost of production wasn't jumping up, up, up.

At the present time, taking my family into consideration, my boys and girls, two each on the farm that I used to produce tobacco, myself, I use them; we have to to make tobacco pay a profit. It we have to hire all that labor, you can't produce tobacco at a profit with anything less than our present support level.

Now, by using those boys and girls out there who can supply the place of a man in some instances, by handling the small leaves of tobacco, we are able to hold the cost of production to 28 cents a pound, as near as I can get at it. There is no way in the world for us to produce an acre of tobacco for less than around $300. So you see why it is so mandatory that we have 90 percent support prices or more. That is a costly operation.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know of any plan to change that. As a matter of fact, the only basic that Secretary Benson said ought to get 90 percent is tobacco.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I don't think you folks are in danger from the administration, at any rate, nor the Congress.

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