Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]

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.

Mr. MATTHEWS. We hope we are not in danger, but this reduction. in acreage that we are facing is what concerns us mostly today.

The CHAIRMAN. The facts presented before our committee this year show that certain tobacco growers seem to be using too much fertilizer. They have learned too well how to grow tobacco so now we have 312 years' supply.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, sir; that is right, Mr. Chairman, we have a full 3 years' supply, but let us not condemn the good weather we have had and the blessings of Almighty God that made that possible on such a small acreage.

The CHAIRMAN. I hope you do not think I have condemned Him. Mr. MATTHEWS. We realize we are in trouble and want to impress upon you gentlemen that we want to continue our 90 percent support in the future and we are ready to go to any cost if it takes reduction in acres to maintain that 90 percent support. That is the thing we are concerned about.

Senator YOUNG. Was there a reduction in the price support this year?

Mr. MATTHEWs. Very little, sir, but overall we took about $5 a hundred across the board less than we got last year or year before. Senator YOUNG. Because of the parity formula?

Mr. MATTHEWS. Not necessarily that, but things in general more or less piled up too much; varieties had a great deal to do with it. We would like to see some varieties condemned by the Department of Agriculture and declared no good so that they wouldn't be planted. We have some that don't age well, don't smoke well, but are being planted because of high production.

The CHAIRMAN. Do the buyers purchase them?

Mr. MATTHEWs. No, sir; they don't like it. That is the biggest thing we have in our support program, those tobaccos that are inferior.

The CHAIRMAN. As to that tobacco, am I to understand the Government takes it over?

Mr. MATTHEWs. Yes, sir; the Government has it in our stabilization program, not necessarily the Government. Our tobacco support program is different from cotton and peanuts and rice and wheat support programs. We borrow the money from the Commodity Credit and support our own program.

The CHAIRMAN. You take it under loan?

Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And if you do not pay the loan, it costs the Government?

Mr. MATTHEWS. The Grading Service of the Department of Agriculture sets up what the stabilization shall support it at and we have got some of those inferior grades on hand planted and we are in trouble because they are such a high-producing variety and not good smoking quality. We would like that to be looked into.

The CHAIRMAN. For the benefit of the tobacco growers, let me say that from October 17, 1933, to June 30, 1955, the Government has benefited to the extent of $187,844.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, sir; that is absolutely true, sir. We just want to stay in the clear.

What we are concerned about is this supply piling up. We want to work out from under without hurting the small tobacco grower. We

would like for you gentlemen to consider that and we are faced with another additional cut more than 12 percent which we have been notified of; faced with an additional cut because of the Secretary of Agriculture having power under the law to reduce acreage to keep supply in line with demand to a certain percentage and we are faced with that problem.

I want to impress something else upon you gentlemen: That tobacco is the only one of those commodities that is just about today being taxed completely out of existence by the Federal and State Governments. Our Federal tax is 8 cents a package on cigarettes, which is $1.36 a pound on the same tobacco we got 40 cents a pound for this

year.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that was one of the compelling factors in letting you have 90 percent.

Mr. MATTHEWS. We want to assure ourselves that we will continue to have 90 percent and at the same time we want to keep this reduction in acreage as low as possible. We have a lot of farmers in Georgia with only a 2- and 3-acre allotment. Those farmers can barely eke out an existence with that small acreage, and we don't feel they can be cut lower than that.

However, as I said, we want to maintain 90 percent at any cost, whatever that cost is. We must have 90 percent.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not think you need worry that the Congress will do a thing about tobacco, but will let it remain as it is. This year, as I remember, there were 5 or 6 bills passed with the consent, as I understand, of all tobacco growers, and the only part of it that may pose a problem is the planting of undesirable tobacco. That is the thing that ought to be corrected by the growers themselves.

Mr. MATTHEWs. We have a movement under way to try to check that.

One other thing a little off the subject of tobacco, but it deals withwe inaugurated a regulation from the county level to the State Farm Bureau level, unanimously adopted in a general resolution there to set a trade, not a trade necessarily, but change of acreage from one farm to another within the county. It is going to require national legislation to get that into working order, but it would be a tremendous help to our tobacco farmers and small cotton farmers-especially tobacco-for this man, this farmer here who has a pond and irrigates and this man can move to tobacco over there and save disaster like last year. A lot of farmers made nothing last year, a complete loss on account of drought.

If we could move acreage from one farm to another-you can't do it now under the law; it has to stay on the farm it was allotted toif we had a provision in the law to permit us to move acres from one farm to another, it would be a great help.

The CHAIRMAN. The same owner?

Mr. MATTHEWS. From one farm to another, still stay in the lands of the same owner, but he could rent 2 or 3 acres on the next farm next to a lake and plant his tobacco there and irrigate it under the same irrigation system with the same water as his neighbor did. It would be a tremendous help to be able to do that.

A lot of our farmers don't want to grow peanuts because it is not, production is not feasibly adequate. So he would like to move that across to another farm and trade to farm acreage of cotton he could

produce at a profit, but can't produce peanuts. That would help. Some farmers produce peanuts and some not. By moving from one farm to another, it would make all the difference in the world in the net income of that farmer.

We would like to see that considered and it is in our general resolution to the Farm Bureau, unanimously adopted at the State level, and if other States would adopt it, it would be a big help to us. The CHAIRMAN. Any questions?

Mr. Strickland, do you desire to say anything or endorse what he said?

STATEMENT OF ERNEST STRICKLAND, CLAXTON, GA.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I think Mr. Matthews maybe didn't make it quite plain enough that with the high cost of irrigation equipment maybe iny neighbor could put his 1.1 acres of tobacco in the same field with my 3 and with the same irrigation equipment from 1 pond irrigate all of that and save a lot of unnecessary labor and trouble. We have had quite a bit of experience with that. I do quite a bit of irrigation. The CHAIRMAN. The plan that you envision, as I understand it would be this: That even though the transfer were made, the farm from which it was transferred would not lose that acreage.

Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir. That could be done with the ASC, by the supervision of the ASC committee without combining those farms. I have a similar situation where I have to take care of my father's farm and this coming year I have definitely made up my mind, after 4 years, to combine those farms to get that tobacco where I can handle it and those sharecroppers had rather tend it there than try to take the big job of transferring this portable irrigation equipment to do the job.

While I am here, if I may I would like to say one word about cotton, as I have studied cotton more than I have tobacco, having been on the State committee for 5 years. I heard nobody mention it at all today and I may be out of line but I wanted to hear something about stockpiling a bunch of cotton. It doesn't get out of date like guns and jet planes and tanks and other things, and to me it is one of the best things for the security of our Nation, in my opinion, to stockpile at least 10 million bales, take it off the market, earmark it for war emergency only. It wouldn't rot overnight. You fellows know how we can handle cotton.

That would relieve some of the tension on cotton and maybe make our enemies take a second look at what we were trying to do. And in case of emergency, as flexible as farming is, we could turn to food instead of fibe for a couple of years and be able to fight a war.

That is worrying me. Maybe you don't see it like I do, and I hope you don't, but I am worried about another war.

That would about conclude my remarks for today. I thank you for listening to me.

Another thing I want to say is to compliment you on the soil conservation program because God knows I don't know what we would have done without that. Right now any minute I want a technician he is as close as my telephone. And time we want to build a pond he is there to run it or a terrace, he is right there. I want to commend you fellows on soil conservation.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »