have a car—he is barely able to meet his obligations without having to contend with crop failure or some similar disaster. That question is: How long can they and similarly situated young couples, and there are many here in Vermont, continue this hard work and sacrifice for the privilege of living in the country?

Both of these young people have a college degree and could well transfer to other fields where income would be better. Is it just and right that they be forced to forego their privilege and desire to live and to bring up their children in a rural environment where they would enjoy all the natural advantages and fullness of life that is consonant with rural living, for purely economic reasons?

We need people of this caliber to live on our Vermont farms. Young farmers are the lifeblood of the future of Vermont agriculture and an enrichment to the rural life of the State and Nation.

Vermont agriculture ought to be made as attractive money wise as it is in every other respect.

In citing this example of the straits young farmers are in, I do not mean to give the impression that their problem is the only one. They are the ones who will be forced out first. Older farmers who have acquired economic independence in some prosperous years of the past can hold on a little longer, but their dream of an independent old age is becoming less and less realistic as they are forced to use capital to cover the cost of operation.

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Branon, would you mind an interruption at that point?

Mrs. BRANON. I would welcome it.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have a plan to bring about what you think ought to be done in your State?

Mrs. BRANON. Not a specific plan, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what we are looking for.

Mrs. BRANON. I was of the opinion that you wanted to know some of our problems.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I want to know them, but what the committee would like to have is some suggestion as to what you think ought to be done in order to remedy the situation of which you complain. Proceed. We might be able to gather it.

Mrs. BRANON. I have spent most of my time in the kitchen and I really would not feel qualified to propose a plan.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; as I said at the beginning of these hearings, we are entirely familiar with it, that is, the problems. What we are looking for is a solution, a method to alleviate the problem.

Mrs. BRANON. Yes, I know that. These are serious problems affecting our Vermont agriculture. We feel there would be a solution. We know Washington cannot work miracles. We do not expect that, but we know that other segments of our economic structure enjoy the aid of some devices and props. Why should the farmer be forced to go it alone?

We ask you honorable gentlemen of the Senate Agricultural Committee to give this serious consideration.

The CHAIRMAN. We certainly are doing that. I think it is most important. That is why I am here. I would enjoy being with my five grandchildren more, but I thought that in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire which is, shall I say, the cradle of our civilization, in other words, part of the area of the Thirteen Original States here-we

thought that they would have some brandnew ideas to give us. That

is why we came up here.

Mrs. BRANON. We appreciate that.

The CHAIRMAN. I still am hopeful to get an answer.

couraged.

I am not disMrs. BRANON. We certainly appreciate your coming, sir. The organization which I represent, in conjunction with the National Council League, Rural Life Conference, is also deeply concerned over the problems of the underprivileged rural people of our country, an entirely different group than I have mentioned before. We strongly urge that serious study be given these problems and their solutions. We recommend that local, regional, and Federal programs be developed so that these people may have a reasonable opportunity to improve their standard of living and to increase their contribution to the Nation's welfare.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mrs. BRANON. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Frances G. Gerisch. We have another lady here. Would you give us your name in full, please, and your occupation.

STATEMENT OF MRS. FRANCES G. GERISCH, ASHFIELD, MASS.

Mrs. GERISCH. Mrs. Frances G. Gerisch, Ashfield, Mass.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we are dairy farmers having 135 acres and a small herd of 40 head of purebred Jersey cows. We have three children, our son is now in the Marines. I give you this data so you understand we come in the category of operating a family farm. As you know, we dairy farmers are in the farm price squeeze along with all segments of agriculture. Many surpluses are using tax dollars for storage af the six so-called basic commodities. About 25 percent of the farmers are producers of the 6 basic commodities, while the other 75 percent are directly or indirectly affected by the rigid price supports.

For the past 20 years or more, we have been saddled with rigid price supports. Let's take a look at the results.

1. While this guaranteed a price to the producer of any or all the basic commodities it deprived the farmer of his right to plant what he wished where he wanted to plant his crop.

2. It priced the United States out of the foreign market.

3. It created a greater surplus each year of grains of inferior quality and robbed the farmer of the incentive to produce the hard grains of good quality because price supports were the same regardless of quality.

4. It failed to curtail acreage. Prior to rigid price supports, cotton was raised mostly in the South, east of the Mississippi. Now it is being raised clear across the South to California. The same with wheat. Wheat is being grown as far south as Arizona, which was unheard of before rigid price supports, to put us in the category of operating a family farm.

5. We farmers in the Northeast have seen our grain for cattle go up from $1.80 per hundred when we started farming some 20 years ago to $5 per hundred.

Thus rigid price supports have proven they are not the answer to the farmers' problem. However, we are in this mess and it has been building up for 20 years. We can't expect that we can just cut out price supports entirely; but by having a flexible price support and making it less attractive to the favored 25 percent, I feel we will come out of this mess.

Flexible price supports has not had a chance to prove itself. It has only been in force since July and already we have found dairy feed $8 per ton less than a year ago.

There definitely must be more teeth in the use of acreage taken out of production through price support. The 75 percent of the farmers not producing one or more of the six basic commodities certainly should not be jeopardized by the diverted acres.

These diverted acres should be nonproductive. There should be no harvest from them and no cattle fed on them. A cover crop planted to preserve the land but not harvested.

In short, any farmer who agrees to accept price support under the terms of reduced acreage should not have their cake and eat it too by putting this acreage into another farm-income crop.

I do not favor farmers being paid not to produce. This, too, was tried 20 years ago without permanent results. It's just not a healthy situation. It doesn't build a strong farm economy. Rather educates "This world owes me a living." Labor certainly is doing a bang-up job along these lines right now-let's keep farmers the rugged individualists we pride ourselves in being.

There are too many pitfalls in such a proposition-the temptation is too great. There will be he who never intended planting the acreage cashing in the gentleman farmer who can see a way of collecting and he didn't need help in the first place.

To sum up-in my opinion and I am sure it is the opinion of many farmers in the Northeast-we should give flexible price supports a chance to prove to us farmers what the results will be. That a soil bank program be created. That greater efforts be made to increase our foreign markets for agricultural products. That quality products be given recognition in a more favorable program for acreage and price.

The CHAIRMAN. We have some quality products in Arkansas and Louisiana, too.

Mrs. GERISCH. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

You mentioned the soil bank. Have you given any thought as to how it should be handled?

Mrs. GERISCH. I have given it thought.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you apply that to the diverted acres or to a certain percentage of all cultivated lands?

Mrs. GERISCH. I do not feel that I am in a position in an overall picture to mention that, so far as the entire United States is concerned, but certainly through survey and the like I should think that a great deal of consideration and thought would be given as to whether these diverted acres be a certain percentage of the farm, if that will do the trick, or the allotment on flexible price supports, the amount taken out of acreage by flexible price supports be put into diverted acres or be put into a soil bank, rather, whichever would accomplish what we are looking for, which is reduced production.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the proposal, of course, of many of the witnesses which we have heard in these hearings.

Would your plan envision the payment of a compensation to the farmer for keeping his acreage out of production?

Mrs. GERISCH. I do not see that.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not see that?

Mrs. GERISCH. I am sorry.

The CHAIRMAN. I just want to get your idea. How would you force him to do it-do you not think that he ought to have a little incentive to be able to do that?

Mrs. GERISCH. I should think if he is on the flexible price support that that would be his contribution toward it for the guaranteed prices for what he raises.

The CHAIRMAN. We have had a lot of witnesses testify that the lower the price the more the farm produces in order to make both ends meet. We have had any number of witnesses testify that the lower the price the more they want to expand and produce, so as to make both ends meet. For instance, we heard some witnesses in the West that used the diverted acres of wheat to plant sorghums and to plant barley. That was in competition with farmers who made a living out of planting barley for chickenfeed and poultry feed and for cattle and other uses.

Mrs. GERISCH. Did they come under the allotment that the Government allowed for price support?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; they were allotted a limited number of acres for wheat and diverted.

Mrs. GERISCH. They should not be permitted to do so.

The CHAIRMAN. I know, that is the cross-compliance. That is one thing that we will have to deal with in trying to arrive at a solution to the problem. As I stated last night, it may be that unless we can get a formula to meet this cross-compliance proposition of not being permitted, in other words, a wheatgrower, from using his diverted acres to plant a commodity that compete with one already in trouble, that may mean the difference between whether we will get a law or not. Mrs. GERISCH. That is what I was trying to bring out. Perhaps I did not.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought that we could get some ideas how to do it. That is what we are concerned with. We know the problem is there. The question, I believe to be is how to solve it.

Mrs. GERISCH. The Government tells the farmer how many acres he is permitted to plant, does it not, on the price-supported acreage? The CHAIRMAN. Whenever there are acreage allotments, the farmer votes them. If two-thirds voted, it applies to everybody. It is in the law that the farmers themselves vote for it. It does not operate without submitting the matter to the farmers.

Mrs. GERISCH. The thing that comes to my mind, and I tried to make it quite clear, is that price support does not cover every farmer. The CHAIRMAN. That is right.

Mrs. GERISCH. It affects every farmer.

The CHAIRMAN. You have rigid price supports, that is, you had, and soon you will have flexible, unless somehting is done. You have a flexible price support for everything else under the law, from 0 to 100 percent if the Secretary of Agriculture puts it on.

Mrs. GERISCH. And to my way of thinking the other 25 percent should come under the flexible-price support.

The CHAIRMAN. It would come under it, but the only difference is that the producers of grain and the producers of tung oil and of a few other commodities, they flex from 0 to 100, whereas in the case of tungoil they flex from 60 to 100, and wheat and corn and others who flex from 75 to 100, just the same as in the case of dairy products.

Mrs. GERISCH. Yes, but the six commodities are rigid price supports; are they not?

The CHAIRMAN. Not at present.

Mrs. GERISCH. That is anticipated? To my way of thinking, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and I would like flexible price supports, to my way of thinking, for all of the commodities.

The CHAIRMAN. With a floor of so much, would you say?

Mrs. GERISCH. I do not know. I have not given it serious enough consideration.

The CHAIRMAN. What is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander. Let us go down the line and see how that would work. A lot of complaints are made now by quite a few producers of barley. They are flexed, but from 0 to 90. Would you want to put a floor under, the same as you want for milk, which is now the case? Would you want the same thing for beans, flaxseed, fruit? They are produced, too, you know. And hops, naval stores?

Mrs. GERISCH. Did I not understand you to say they are all under flexible supports?

The CHAIRMAN. From 0 to 90, but you have some that have a floor, of 60, others of 75; would you want to raise those to the same or let it be from 0 up to 100?

Mrs. GERISCH. Let us floor them all.

The CHAIRMAN. You would want to put wheat, everybody from zero up to that; is that your idea?

Mrs. GERISCH. You are confusing me, because I do not follow it. The CHAIRMAN. I do not mean to do that.

Mrs. GERISCH. I am sorry, I cannot think along your lines. I cannot get it.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say that under the law as it now stands supports for every commodity can be flexed. In order to reduce production, the Secretary has a right to start at zero up to 100 if he wants to on some commodities. He can go up to 110 if he wants to, if the production is needed in our economy of that crop. There are some such, tung oil, cotton, wheat, corn, that cannot flex below 75 percent. Would you want to put all of the others in that same category or would you want to let them all flex from zero up to 100?

Mrs. GERISCH. I do not know. I have not thought it through. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions? If not, thank you.

We have reached the lunch hour. It is now 12:15. We will recess, to be back here at 1: 15.

We stand in recess until 1: 15 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 12:15 p. m., the committee recessed until 1:15 p. m. this day.