ily, or people who wanted to give them a break in getting started as family farmers. This tremendous increase represents the improvement that was made in the insured farmownership program, about $145 million of that $183 million total is represented by funds provided by private investors and insured by the Farmers Home Administration. It does reflect the tremendous increase in work load that the same staff essentially employed by Farmers Home Administration in 1960 carried in 1962 in this particular part of the program. We will be glad to provide a reduced size map for the record.

EMPLOYMENT

Mr. WHITTEN. You might supply at this point in the record the number of personnel that you have had for the last several years, and include in that any personnel that may have been paid from any funds other than the direct appropriation. Heretofore in prior years you have had some rights to allocate funds from disaster loans and various other revolving funds. So be sure to distinguish between those that were paid from some other activity as against those in your regular appropriation.

Mr. BERTSCH. We would be glad to do that.

(The information referred to follows:)

Average number of all employees (man-years)

1 Full-time permanent and temporary and part-time employees except committeemen. Includes emergency credit revolving fund, trust funds, and allocations from Soil Conservation Service, consolidated working fund, and Agency for International Development.

Mr. HORAN. Mr. Chairman, I notice Arkansas has perhaps—well, Arkansas and your State of Mississippi-have dramatic increases. Was that because we have made it possible to consolidate holdings. and make farming more feasible and truly economical?

Mr. BERTSCH. Congressman Horan, those States and other Southeastern States are States with large farm populations relatively; they are States with great numbers of relatively small farms compared to the national average.

During the years of the tenant purchase program, first, and then the enlargement and development aspects of that program, funds had been allocated, in the early years, on the basis of farm population and percent of tenancy. This was a statutory requirement. So that the program got well known in those States because more funds were made available by that distribution formula.

These are largely loans for the enlargement of inadequate units and they do represent in substantial measure an improvement in the land base of the borrowers.

Mr. WHITTEN. We would be glad to have that map in the record at this point also.

96884-63-pt. 4- -2

Mr. BERTSCH. Proportionately, I suspect that is about as good a performance in Nevada, as the one in Arkansas, if we consider the number of family farms available in that area. We have three county offices in that State.

Mr. WHITTEN. Of course we recognize that farmownership loans are a relatively small part of your operation. Apparently it has become a little more important under the changed picture. But by and large it has been a small part of your activity, has it not in prior years?

DOLLAR VOLUME OF LOANS

Mr. BERTSCH. We now have some States in which the number of borrowers, per county, of the farmownership classification or the general real estate classification, exceed for the first time the number of operating loan borrowers in those States. So it is becoming more and more significant. This is why, if I may add, this is one of the reasons why we believe that dollars loaned is as good a measure of our increase or perhaps a better one than numbers of farmers served, because a real estate loan of this character, involving considerably more money than an operating loan also involves a great deal more energy expended on the part of supervisory personnel. There is a lot more labor involved in processing a real estate loan and this is where our great increase is taking place, in our real estate area.

Mr. WHITTEN. That is true. But from my own experience once you do complete it and once you have it accomplished, unless he gets in arrears on his payments, you are inclined to not bother with him.

Mr. BERTSCH. Yes.

Mr. WHITTEN. So the question is whether this volume is going to continue, this rate of increase. If so, it certainly puts a burden on you. I am sure it requires some degree of supervision and office work in recording payments and keeping books, but the main job is in approving the original loan and things of that sort.

Mr. BERTSCH. The annual planning with the family takes place with these borrowers, just as it does with operating loan borrowers, so that generally supervision balances out about equally. So far this fiscal year our direct and insured farmownership loans have totaled more than $140 million, and we estimate they will reach $200 million by the close of the fiscal year.

It is already clearly evident that a heavy demand will continue through fiscal 1964.

Most of the demand for farmownership loans comes from farmers who need to develop and enlarge their farms to remain competitive in today's highly competitive business of farming. There is also a strong demand for funds to refinance existing debts. Too many farmers have entered into land contracts on terms they cannot meet, terms that must be restructured on a more realistic basis if debts are to be successfully liquidated.

The repayments on farmownership loans which have always been noteworthy have further improved during the past year. Borrowers who still owe balances on their loans have paid 104 percent of the amount fallen due.

SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION LOANS

For soil and water conservation loans the budget estimate for direct loans is $15 million, an increase of $5 million over the funds available for 1963.

These loans are available to individual farmowners or operators and to nonprofit associations of farmers and rural people. Currently most of the funds are being used to make loans to associations. Applications for association loans were 50 percent greater during the first 6 months of the 1963 fiscal year than during the same period in fiscal 1962.

A decent water supply is basic not only to the health and physical well-being of rural people, but also to the economic strength of rural communities. The Consolidated Farmers Home Administration Act of 1961 strengthened the ability of the Farmers Home Administration to help rural communities solve their water problems. And the Food and Agriculture Act of 1962 added shifts in land use to the purposes for which loans to associations may be made.

These broadened authorities have increased loan-making activity to a point where we are now processing association loans in 35 States. For comparison, loans were made in only 11 States during fiscal year 1961. We estimate that most States will have association loans by the end of fiscal 1964.

This next map shows in red the States where loans were made during fiscal 1961. That water program started and in early years was confined to the semiarid Western States. So you will see even as late as 1961, several years after it had been authorized on a national basis, loans were still confined largely to Western States. In green, we show additional States receiving loans during fiscal years 1962 and 1963. During those 2 years, last year and this current fiscal year, we have essentially succeeded in making this program a program of national coverage, of national significance.

And in blue, we show the States where new applications are being developed now, anticipating loans in fiscal 1964. So that by the end of the upcoming year, we will have essentially a program of national significance in this water program.

We expect the volume of direct and insured soil and water conservation loans to reach $55 million in fiscal 1964, of which $15 million would, hopefully, be direct.

Mr. WHITTEN. We would be glad to have that included in the record at this point.

(The map referred to follows:)