Mr. WHITTEN. The Government has had this type program three or four times, but I have never seen that we could have enough money to rent enough land to have any sizable effect upon production. I still have a serious question in my mind as to whether cropland conversion ever will have the desired effect on production. I have seen the figures that are submitted, but I still doubt its effectiveness. Mr. GODFREY. This is, of course, the effort on the pilot program to make other use of the land rather than let it continue producing those crops that are in surplus. I would like to point out one thing, Ed Jaenke reminds me here, that the average annual per acre adjustment payment cost is $5.65 per acre under this program, as compared to an average cost per acre coming from under the conservation reserve program at the end of 1963 of approximately $14 per acre. EMPLOYMENT TRENDS Here is the chart on the man-years of employment, Federal and county. (The chart follows:) CHART ON MAN-YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT, FEDERAL AND COUNTY This chart shows man-years of employment for both Federal and County offices for fiscal years 1958 through 1965. Man-years have been kept well below the 1958 level, when soil bank work was at its peak. The budget estimates contemplate that man-years of employment will be about 2,200 less in fiscal year 1965 than in 1964 under existing legislation. 1 Includes 2,312 man-years for proposed 1964 supplemental appropriation for feed grain program. Mr. GODFREY. The Federal is shown by a diagonal line and crosshatched for county. You will notice that the high point of Federal employment in ASCS was in 1958. The next high point was in the fiscal year 1962, following the inauguration of the feed grain and wheat stabilization programs. Since that time, we have made a gradual decrease and we estimate in 1965 that we will be down to a little under 31,000 man-years. This is a considerable reduction from 1962 when we had nearly 36,000 man-years and from 1958 when the total was nearly 38,000 man-years. PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT Here is one that illustrates the achievements that we have had in commodity offices in the way of reducing employment or increasing the amount of work done by individuals. If you will recall, we have a workload measurement system that we use in commodity offices and if we were producing at the same production rate that we accomplished in 1960, it would take this number [indicating] of man-years, about 5,400 man-years in 1965, where with increased productivity per employee, we will require about 3,300 man-years in 1965. (The chart follows:) |