first year some 55 million pounds difference than operating under the present law. I believe it amounts to $48 million. And as we look ahead for the next 5 years, without the 15 percent we would be unable to by that time get down to a 2.8-year carryover.

If we went with the bill as it is today, at the end of 5 years we would still have over a 3-year supply.

This concludes my statement at this time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ABBITT. What page is that proviso on?

Mr. FRICK. Page 6, on line 5, of H.R. 4328.

Mr. ABBITT. And the other is on page 7?

Mr. MILLER. Page 4, line 8.

Mr. FRICK. The provisos are on page 6 of both bills.

Mr. ABBITT. Now, how has the poundage control worked for the other tobacco?

Mr. FRICK. The poundage control on flue-cured has worked much better than without the poundage control.

Mr. ABBITT. We appreciate very much that statement.

Are there any questions?

Mr. WAMPLER. Mr. Frick, under present acreage allotment programs, am I correct in saying that the only question beyond the referendum this year, 1971, would be whether to accept acreage allotments as proclaimed by the Secretary or no program at all?

Mr. FRICK. That is correct.

Mr. WAMPLER. What would be the option under the present law with the crop years of 1972 and 1973 as it relates to the question that would be on the referendum?

Mr. FRICK. Mr. Turner?

Mr. TURNER. What you could do then, Congressman Wampler, assuming that the vote carries, in 1971, then you would have quotas in effect for 3 years. Then the Secretary would have the option of offering the acreage-poundage program, which has already been offered twice in the burley area and failed to carry.

Mr. WAMPLER. Acreage-poundage would be offered, then, in the year 1972 and/or 1973 if we assume it did not pass in 1971?

Mr. TURNER. That is correct.

Mr. WAMPLER. Under the proposed bill, what would be the question to the referendum growers in the 1971 referendum?

Mr. TURNER. Under the proposed bill they would be voting for quotas on a poundage basis.

Mr. WAMPLER. Or no program at all?

Mr. TURNER. Or no program at all.

Mr. WAMPLER. Actually, under the pending bill, the question of continuing it or the present program, the growers would not have an opportunity to vote on that?

Mr. FRICK. That is correct.

Mr. WAMPLER. With relation to the program that the flue-cured tobacco industry had a few years ago with the burden of surpluses, did it not take you a number of years to work out of this problem? You did not do this in 1 year; get rid of your surplus in 1 year? Mr. TURNER. No, sir. I think they set out to reduce the surplus by 100 million pounds a year. Now, are on target for 6 years. Now, we have reduced the total supply by about 615 million pounds, but we are not quite out of the woods, because domestic use has been

decreasing, so as this domestic use decreases you have got to further decrease the supply.

Mr. WAMPLER. What bothers me, and I assume it does others who have an interest in this legislation, is what is going to happen to the grower in the second year under this poundage program?

For example, the man who now enjoys a statutory minimum of half an acre or less, depending on what he has, and he takes a modest cut this year, and then next year, perhaps if you had a very excessive cut with this, what is this going to do to him? So, we have problems with the 1972 and 1973 as well as 1971.

Mr. FRICK. My understanding, Mr. Congressman, is that if this were amended as suggested that the 15 percent, or whatever part of this, we only had asked for the 15-percent authority, and what would happen this year then there would not be a great adjustment in the next year compared to this year?

Mr. TURNER. This is correct.

Mr. WAMPLER. This still is within the discretion of the Secretary? There is no statutory protection?

Mr. FRICK. Other than the maximum.

Mr. WAMPLER. Which would be the 15 percent?

Mr. FRICK. But recognizing the utilization of tobacco or the disappearance, and if it held steady or near steady there should then be very little change.

Mr. WAMPLER. I assume you were present when Mr. Clay and I had the colloquy on the proposed limitation of the 5-percent cut for the next 3 crop years. Does that do violence to the department's philosophy or not?

Mr. FRICK. We worked that out here, one of the men worked it out just a minute ago-you were talking about 5 percent?

Mr. WAMPLER. Per year for the next 3 years.

Mr. FRICK. In comparison to his allotment?,

Mr. WAMPLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. FRICK. With the poundage?

Mr. WAMPLER. Yes, sir..

Mr. FRICK. And this would reduce the production more than this present bill would in the first year, and would in each succeeding year on through the first five years, and we figured it here. We would like to check these figures and submit them to you later to be sure.

Mr. WAMPLER. Do I understand your preliminary estimate would be it would reduce production greater than the language of the present bill?

Mr. FRICK. It would reduce total production more than the present bill.

Mr. TURNER. I think for the first year it would be the same because it is 5 percent from the base under both bills, but the difference here is that the production would be in excess of what it would be under the present law.

Mr. WAMPLER. Well, I would be grateful if you could supply that. Mr. FRICK. We would supply you with the information.

Mr. WAMPLER. And give us the base if, in fact, it does reduce production greater than the present language, and then I suppose I will have to reexamine my position.

(The information requested is as follows:)

BURLEY TOBACCO, PRODUCTION, SUPPLY, SUPPLY-DISAPPEARANCE RATIO, ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMS

Mr. ABBITT. I know you are interested in the welfare of the program, and if you come up with an idea that is better, we will listen to it.

Mr. WAMPLER. Mr. Frick, I think you understand what we are trying to do is to lessen the impact during the transition if we are, in fact, going to the poundage program, and we want to protect as best we can the small grower, medium-sized grower, and the large.

Mr. FRICK. We understand this, and we agree with the concept of the two changes. One is the poundage or else you never will have the control that is needed, and secondly, with everyone taking some share of the cut, that seems to be necessary, and our only problem is this, in increasing more under this program the carryover stock, or the stocks held by CCC, compared to the law we are under today.

Mr. ABBITT. Any other questions?

Go ahead.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Frick, we discussed the amount of burley that is in the CCC at the present time. Can you give us that figure? Mr. FRICK. Yes; we have about 500 million pounds.

Mr. MILLER. 500 million pounds?

Mr. FRICK. Which is 11 months of the normal domestic consumption.

Mr. MILLER. This is burley alone?

Mr. FRICK. That is correct, sir.

Mr. MILLER. Now, would you anticipate that with this bill, this stock will be reduced?

Mr. FRICK. Yes; there would be a slight reduction because of the bill itself.

Mr. MILLER. In the first year or

Mr. FRICK. In the first year.

Mr. TURNER. Maybe.

Mr. FRICK. In the first year. It is about level, and a slight reduction. Mr. MILLER. I see. How about the second year and the third year? Mr. FRICK. Yes; we do get more reduction in the second and third year.

Mr. MILLER. Is it a large amount?

Mr. TURNER. Under the acreage program that we now have, and that is a major cut. It starts with a total supply of about 1,900 million pounds, and by the third year under the acreage program you would come down to 1,650. I am rounding these figures to make it easier. You come down to about 1,650 million pounds.

That is about 250 million pounds drop. Under the House bill and the bill that was introduced in the Senate you would come down to about 1,740 million pounds. That is almost 100 million pounds above the present acreage program.

If you adjusted the bill in the way the department is suggesting, by the end of the third year you would be down to about 1,610 million pounds, which is almost 300 million drop from the beginning supply.

You would have on hand a total supply of about 3 years under that bill. Under the acreage bill it would be about 3.1, and then under the bill that we are discussing and the Senate bill it would be about 3.3, just slightly below where we are now.

Mr. MILLER. I am not sure I am following you in the 3.1 and the 3.3. You are talking about years?

Mr. TURNER. Yes, sir; 3 years duration.

Mr. MILLER. But at the present time we have approximately 11 months?

Mr. FRICK. As far as Commodity Credit Corporation stocks are concerned as to the total supply we have 3.4 years of the total supply. Mr. MILLER. But we are outside burley. We are beyond burley? Mr. FRICK. No, sir; in burley we have a total supply of 3.4 years and 500 million pounds of that is in Commodity Credit. The rest is in private hands.

Mr. MILLER. I want to collect my figures, Mr. Chairman, if you will pass over and come back.

Mr. ABBITT. All right.

Mr. MIZELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Frick, reference was made to the success of the Flue-cured program. Is this not an acreage and poundage program, the Fluecured?

Mr. FRICK. Yes, sir.

Mr. MIZELL. And it has worked very successfully, having been adopted overwhelmingly this past year, and it is doing a good job.

But, what percentage of burley tobacco is produced by the minimum producers, with half-acre or less?

Mr. TURNER. I think the acreage allotted to the minimum farms is about 27 percent, 27 to 30 percent of the total.

Mr. MIZELL. But how much of the total production in poundage is this?

Mr. TURNER. I do not know.

Mr. MIZELL. While it is 27 percent of the total acreage allotment, it is not 27 percent of the total poundage production?

Mr. TURNER. That is correct.

Mr. MIZELL. In fact, it would be a good deal less than the 27 percent? Mr. TURNER. I would suspect it would be less, yes.

Mr. MIZELL. I think the gentleman is correct in saying that the poundage will run less.

Is the real problem with burley not necessarily the size of the allotments, but the ability of major producers to increase production on those acres?

Would you say this is what has made the greatest contribution to the problem now?

Mr. TURNER. Apparently they are all able to increase the yield per

acre.

Mr. MIZELL. I think you sidestepped that very well, but I would like to come back to some figures I have here, and I will have to refer to North Carolina because I do not have them for all areas, but in North Carolina we have 17,416 producers, with an average of just slightly less than a half acre per producer.

In 1966 they were able to produce 2,325 pounds per acre, which is 1,162 pounds on the half acre. On this same half-acre allotment in 1970, they were able to produce 1,286 pounds, which totaled 124 pounds per acre that my producers in North Carolina have contributed to the overproduction. When we take the same figures and apply it to those areas where you have average allotments close to 11 acres per allotment, we find that I do not have the figure for 1969, but in 1970 they produced 2,742 pounds per acre.

That was the average, and if we go back to the national average of 1966 this means that they have overproduced over 300 per acre.

Now, I am not criticizing the ingenuity of the burley producers, but the point I want to make is that the little man is not the one that is making the major contribution to the overproduction.

On his small acreage he has just about reached a maximum that he can produce, but a man with a 10-acre allotment has contributed between 3,000 to 3,500 pounds per allotment in overproduction the last 5 years.

I do not feel that the man with a half-acre allotment and many times this is what pays the taxes on the old homestead—is making as great a contribution to the problem, and I cannot quite see why he should be penalized on the same standard as those who have made the major contribution to the problem.

So, if we were to reduce the acreage by 15 percent, when you get this down to dollars, to the smaller producer it means a great deal; and under the present legislation of course, the point has already been made by Mr. Frick, and also by Mr. Wampler he either takes this package or he does not have anything, under the present bills that we are considering.

If the referendum were held, and the legislation reported out of our committee that would continue under the present law, if this were put to the people for referendum, accepting the judgment of the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce the allotment, do you think it would pass?

Mr. FRICK. Of course, I have no idea, sir. I do not know.

Mr. MIZELL. I think it has been accepted several times before. It has passed by more than the two-thirds majority that has been needed. It has, or evidently you would not have a program. But, under this present legislation they have no option. How much trouble would it