I think there would probably be no question that it would be sustained here, sir. Senator DOUGLAS. Senator Allott? On page 7 of your statement, you say: We hope that Congress will not let the corporation farms with their hundreds and even thousands of employees get away any longer putting on Farmer Jones' galluses every time somebody mentions the need for decent wages, hours, and labor relations for their employees. Do you know of any farms that employ hundreds or thousands of workers? Mr. BARBASH. Yes. Senator ALLOTT. Where are they? Mr. BARBASH. Just to pick a name out of the hat, the DiGiorgio Farm in California. And I call to your attention, sir, the record of the Labor Department, in the form of appendix H, in volume 3 of your committee, which deals with the growth in the size of farms. Senator ALLOTT. You have picked out a single instance, and I know of perhaps two others that might fall in that category. My only purpose in pinpointing this is that the effect of your statement here is to indicate that this country is shot over with large farms employing hundreds, or thousands of people. Now, I do not know of any farm, corporation, or otherwise that employs a thousand people. And I do not have personal knowledge of any single farm that employs hundreds, although I can think of some that I am sure probably employ that many. But the situation which you present here, I submit, is not a fair picture of the farms throughout our country, starting through the great Midwest, and the West; and I am sure it is not true in the East. There may be isolated instances or situations where this is true. But I do not think it should be allowed to stand as a general picture of it, because it is not a general picture. Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Well, there are many farms employing-let us say a number employing-hundreds. And collectively there are thousands in it. And even one of them is one too many, wouldn't you agree, to put on farmer Jones' galluses and be exempt because of that. Even one is too much, it would seem to me. I do not see any sound basis for excluding them if there were only one. I think he ought to be in it. Senator ALLOTT. Well, perhaps you don't. I do. That is the difference in our points of view. And there are some of us who still believe that there is no need for the Government to be in every area. And I think that this is an area where men should be permitted to bargain freely for their wages. Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Well, I am a strong believer in free collective bargaining. But I also think that, as I made very clear, there ought to be a floor under which no one will sink here in this land of abundance and plenty. That is, anyone who is ready, willing and able to work. I am not dealing with the malingerer, now, or the man who is trying to live off of somebody else's labor, or the shark. I am talking about the good, honest citizen who wants to do a good and fair day's work, an honest day's work. And I am talking about those who are looking for it. And I think we ought to have a floor in this Nation. We can never put ourselves up on a hill and see any great degree of want around us and not have it ourselves later. Senator ALLOTT. I quite agree with that, that we cannot put ourselves on an island. But I also think that there are areas that the Government should stay out of. And I cannot see any reason for them getting into this particular one, for example. I wanted to pinpoint this, because I submit that the statement as it is is not a fair representation of what the actual situation is. There are, I know, some very large farms, but that is not the statement as it is here. And I want to clear he record, that the statement here is not a true picture of the situation as it exists throughout the greater portion of the country. There might be a comparatively few farms that employ into the hundreds. I have never even heard of any, with one possible exception that might employ a thousand. But it is not an overall picture of the situation in this country, particularly in this day and age when you find, through the use of machines, one man sometimes farming several sections by himself, with machines. And that is not an uncommon thing. Mr. BARBASH. I would like to add this comment here. Mr. Mitchell of the Agricultural Workers will be testifying this morning. I am sure he can give you additional examples. But I call your attentionwhich I think has not been challenged-to the statement in the AFLCIO report, which reads as follows: Examination of the size, distribution of American farms— reading from page 18 reveals how much of farming today is big business. In 1950, of the 5.2 million farms in the United States, some 3.5 million sold less than 15 percent of the total marketable products. These are the small farms. Then, there are about a million and a half family farms, most of which were operated entirely by the farmer and members of his family. They accounted for an additional 60 percent. At the other end of the scale there were only 70,000 large farms, 5,000 or more acres in the West, 1,000 or more acres in the rest of the country, which covered onethird of the land of the United States, and two-thirds of the land in the Western States. These farms are getting bigger and fewer. They produce one-fourth of the farm products sold on the market, and employ the bulk of the Nation's farm workers. Senator ALLOTT. That does not mean they are getting more in number of employees? Mr. BARBASH. Senator Alott, I do not think that we are suggesting that you ought to cover the family farm. In fact, our statement contains an explicit statement to the contrary. Senator ALLOTT. Well, the only point I want to make-and I want to make it clear-is that insofar as your statement tends to imply that agriculture consists of a lot of large corporate farms employing hundreds or thousands of people, it is not exact. And I do not think it is true. Mr. BARBASH. Senator Allott, may I say with proper respect that we do not believe that the statement implies that. Senator ALLOTT. All right. If it doesn't, why, then, that is all right. Mr. BARBASH. But we do say, and perhaps you would agree, that to the extent agriculture has become industrialized with several hundred, and with thousands, of employees, it is not the family farm. 78155-567 And to the extent that there is evidence in the record, as there is, sir, that this industrialization is ignored in trying to beat off exemptions, the farm question ought to be looked at differently. We agree that the family farm ought not to be subject to minimumwage regulation. But the corporation farm with its hundreds, and yes thousands, of employees ought to be subject to regulation. Senator ALLOTT. Well, now that you have cleared up what you mean by that, I am satisfied with your statement. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, as I am. I would just like to point this out: that because we have heard so much on the floor of the Senate in the last few weeks about the very bad plight of the farmer and the small amount of income he is receiving, generally speaking-and I can quote only from my own State, but I can substantiate these figures from other States also-that the term "larger farms" is not a thing of the last 2 or 3 years, but is a thing of the last 50 years. To be more precise than that, I go back to 1930; since 1930, the number of farms in Colorado, for example, has decreased by 25 percent. And the number of acres has still increased 25 percent over the acreage and production in 1930. So that you have both factors-the decrease in farms, the decrease in the number of farms, and the decrease in number of acreage, to make your farms larger. And it just happens that they run almost exactly 25 percent, give a percent or 2 either way. The curious thing about it is that in spite of all of this talk about the big farmer and so forth, this condition in my own State-and it is the only one that I have studied the figures on definitely-has been going on for 50 years. Mr. BARBASH. We do not claim that it is a recent phenomenon, Senator Allott. But I do think it is of some significance that the labor movement, we think, was on the right side in the recent debate on farm aid with respect to protecting the interests of the small farmers. This is not a position that we take just for the minimum. wage. But when the votes were being counted, we tried to do our best to see that the small farmer got a break, as the record, I think, will show. Senator ALLOTT. I am not saying that you didn't We disagree perhaps about what you thought that bill would do; because the bill as it finally came to the Senate, in my opinion, would have strangled him and put him in-or would have augered a hole and shoved him in further than it is now. Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Senator, since you went back to 1930: It is good to go there for statistics, but let's not go for anything else, because if I remember right, that is when farms really did get bigger because there were so many of them being sold and taken away from people. Senator ALLOTT. That is right. The President of the United States offered a program to Congress to try and avoid that situation. Let's not forget that. But I am trying to point out to you that it is a fact. I just wanted to straighten out what this means, because he has stated that he does not mean it in the sense that I interpreted it; and that satisfies me. I just wanted to get it straightened out. I have just had my attention called to the statement made by Mr. Ruttenberg yesterday in which he said on page 18: "There are a million and a half family farms." And they say that above that that they want to cover approximately 900,000 workers on what are 70,000 large farms. If you divide that out, it comes to about 13 per farm, which does not run into the hundreds. I am using your figures on that. Mr. BARBASH. Senator Allott, we do not want to don Farmer Jones' galluses either and pose as experts on the farm problem. But we have said that we stand ready to support the AFL-CIO position. You will get testimony, expert testimony, from a member of the agricultural workers, the president of the Agricultural Workers Union. (A supplementary statement by Mr. Barbash follows:) Senator PAUL H. DOUGLAS, Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor, INDUSTRIAL UNION DEPARTMENT, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR DOUGLAS: I should like to supplement my testimony in response to Senator Allott's question concerning agricultural workers. I hope you will consent to enter the following in the record at the appropriate place. The following are excerpts from the publication Down on the Farm, The Plight of Agricultural Labor, published by the League for Industrial Democracy, in 1955: "THE CORPORATION FARM "Finally, there are the large farms, often called corporation farms or factories-in-the-fields. Many large farms are controlled by boards of directors just like industrial corporations, and a plain dirt farmer would feel as out of place at a board meeting of an agricultural corporation as he would at a meeting of bank executives, many of whom, incidentally, serve as directors of agricultural corporations. "Compared to the millions of family-type and small marginal farms, there are relatively few big farms in this country-only about 70,000. But they cover one-third of the land in the United States and two-thirds of the land in the Western States.1 "The quiet, but increasing, concentration of economic and political power in agriculture in the large farms passes virtually unnoticed, although everyone is familiar with the growth and influence of large industrial corporations. The big farms are getting bigger, and fewer. There were over 100,000 of them in 1945; today there are, as has been said, about 70,000, but their size is increasing. Considerable overlapping in ownership of these agricultural giants exists, but no one knows how much because no data is available on this crucial aspect of our economy. "One-quarter of the farm products sold on the market each year comes from the corporation-type farms. They are the chief beneficiaries of the price-support program. Since there is no ceiling on support payments, the farmers with the largest production get the largest payments. The census classifies all units of 5,000 or more acres in the West, and all units of 1,000 acres or more in the rest of the country, as large farms. "Partial list of large farms receiving $200,000 or more in Government payments in 1953 Name and address Horrigan Farms, Prosser, Wash. E. P. Coleman, Sikeston, Mo‒‒‒ Bledsoe Plantations, Greenwood, Miss.. Carl Clawson, Lubbock, Tex---. Amount $354, 339.00 348, 646. 20 338, 535. 55 270, 607.00 232, 527.90 209, 034. 31 201, 832.00 1, 269, 492, 66 1,246, 516. 46 643, 993. 37 604, 321. 89 503, 908. 11 499, 008. 22 456, 133. 74 440, 695. 56 412, 361. 10 394, 351. 03 359, 204, 39 323, 686. 78 298, 129. 46 208, 474. 24 208, 139.36 201, 492. 05 201, 007. 43 "But the extent of the acreage owned by the large farms and the billions of dollars involved only hint at the vast economic and political power of the corporate farm interests in influencing prices, in controlling the processing and distribution of agricultural products and in affecting legislation and the administrative processes of government in the States and in Washington. "The economic control of the corporate farm interests is exercised in various ways. Here are some instances. "Nearly all the citrus fruit grown in California is managed by a fruitgrowers' corporation controlled by the big growers. There are many small citrus groves in the State which look to the eye, and are classified by the census, as small farms. But the corporation sends in its own crews to plant the trees, cultivate and harvest the crops and process and market them. The small-grove owner is in effect simply renting his land to the fruitgrowers corporation from which he gets a price in the form of a dividend. Similar controls operate in the production and marketing of sugar beets and other fruits and vegetables and, to some extent, in the basic crops of wheat, corn and cotton. "About 80 percent of the fruit distributed in the New York market is handled by the New York Fruit Auction Corp., in which the DiGiorgio Fruit Corp. of California owns a 44 percent interest. The DiGiorgio Corp. is one of the most powerful of the agricultural corporations. "While small marginal farms produce nearly all of the Nation's milk, over 60 percent of all dairy products are sold to, processed, and distributed by 3 major dairy corporations. This milk is marketed under different names in different localities. The dairy farmer receives about one-third of the consumer's dollar for his products, often less than the cost of production. "TWO GIANT FARM CORPORATIONS "Name: DiGiorgio Fruit Corp., a Delaware corporation, Kern County, Calif. "Produces: Deciduous and citrus fruits, grapes and vegetables, cotton and grain. "Control: A family corporation, with some directors from New York and Cuba. "Owns: 31,000 acres richly irrigated land in California ; large packinghouse and a 10 million gallon winery, both located on the California farm and 4,000 acres The above figure appeared in the Congressional Record May 5, 1955. The DiGiorgio Corp. has long been one of the financial supporters of the Associated Farmers of California, whose primary purpose is to prevent the organization of labor in rural areas. |