Senator AIKEN. What I was getting at is whether the 90 percent of parity support, which is the highest allowed under the bill would be adequate support, 60- to 90-percent range. Ninety-percent parity, including farm labor and subsidies of the past, would amount to about $4.16 a hundred. I was just trying to figure out if such a support would be comparable to the support given other commodities. I guess maybe it would be. Mr. HERRMANN. It would be if the 10-year average base were taken across the board. It would preserve a comparable relationship. Senator AIKEN. And if things went to pieces, of course 60 percent would be about $2.70 support level. What we are trying to do is to devise the formula that will be fairly applicable to all commodities without having to set up special legislation for them. That is why I asked the question to get the comparison of the support which would be given milk. Mr. HERRMANN. I have here a set of computations which I would like to offer for the record. (The computation is as follows:) Present parity, current parity proposals, and actual farm prices of selected farm products, Mar. 15, 1948 2 Dairy subsidies are included in the 10-year average prices from which these parities are calculated. Excluding subsidies would lower the butterfat parities by 4.4, 4.7, and 6.3 cents per pound, respectively, and milk parities 24, 25, and 33 cents per hundredweight. Senator AIKEN. Is your estimate of what you should have 80 percent of income? Mr. HERRMANN. Our proposal was that the support prices be based on the 80 percent of the hourly earnings of parity. Senator AIKEN. How would that compare with 80 percent of farm. income support level? It would not run too close because you have other expenditures coming in there. Mr. HERRMANN. It would be higher as compared with parity income as defined by the bill at present. I believe the present definition of parity income is a normal supply times parity prices. Senator AIKEN. You have $4.62 as parity for milk under the bill which we are considering, including farm wages. Mr. HERRMANN. Yes. Senator AIKEN. Did you use the subsidies in estimating that, too? Mr. HERRMANN. Yes. Senator AIKEN. You did? That is where you differ from the Department's figures. Mr. HERRMANN. Yes. I discussed that unofficially with some of the boys in the Bureau over there and I gathered that they would be reluctant without direct authorization to include subsidies. It strengthens our determination or our purpose in requesting such a direction. Senator AIKEN. It would definitely be unfair not to include subsidies which were paid. Mr. HERRMANN. If the price generally fell to support levels you would have unfavorable production responses. Mr. HOLMAN. Let me interpolate the fact that some subsidies were translated into price by being paid into processors, whereas the dairy farmers had their subsidies paid direct to them, which brings about a peculiar technical difficulty in the minds of these boys who are working on the parity program in the Department. Senator AIKEN. That would even give the subsidy for cheese. Was that paid to the processor? Mr. HERRMANN. There was a subsidy on cheese paid to the processor and it was paid in lieu of a price ceiling increase. Senator AIKEN. That is right, so you would have a variable, you would have an inequity between your farmer-produced milk for cheese and the one who produced milk for home consumption. Mr. HOLMAN. Or for butter or for separated milk. Senator AIKEN. That is right. Mr. HERRMANN. That would depend on whether the Sec1 ary would determine a separate parity for milk for separate uses, which he might conceivably do, although he has not in the past. It illustrates the principle, certainly. The CHAIRMAN. Have you concluded your statement? Mr. HERRMANN. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Mr. HERRMANN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Leslie T. Wells, president of Suffolk County Farm and Home Bureau and 4-H Club Association, Riverhead, N. Y. STATEMENT OF LESLIE T. WELLS, PRESIDENT, SUFFOLK COUNTY FARM AND HOME BUREAU AND 4-H CLUB ASSOCIATION, RIVERHEAD, N. Y. Mr. WELLS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to apologize humbly for not having copies of my statement made up. Mr. George Strong, chairman of the Suffolk County Farm Bureau, is here, as well as Mr. Amherst Davis, vice chairman, and all three of us jumped off the tractor to take the train to come here last night, and we just had this statement typed this morning. We have not had time to make other copies, but we will see that the members have copies. Senator THYE. Mr. Wells, before you get into your statement, how are the field conditions? Are the fields in good condition for spring? Mr. WELLS. They have been wet all the time up to possibly today. Senator THYE. Are you getting your crop in in a normal season? Mr. WELLS. It is going to be 4 or 5 days later than common. Senator THYE. Thank you. I was just interested. The CHAIRMAN. We shall be glad to hear from you now. Senator AIKEN. I take it, Mr. Wells, you are representing the county farm bureau rather than the Long Island potato growers, this morning? Mr. WELLS. Well, at the meeting last Thursday night, Senator, of all of the potato growers, it was voted that we represent them all. We do represent as well the farm bureau, but everybody in Suffolk County belongs to the farm bureau. Senator AIKEN. The reason I asked that is that in scanning the statement I notice the support level you recommend here and, if I remember correctly, I had a letter from somebody in the association asking for a continuance of the 90-percent support. Personally, I am glad you have revised that. Mr. WELLS. At the last meeting we had all the leaders, and this is our determination. May I read the statement? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. WELLS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry-first, we wish to thank you gentlemen for this opportunity of appearing before you in regard to bill S. 2318, a bill to provide for a coordinated agricultural gram, introduced by Senator Aiken, of Vermont, and other members of your committee. pro Appearing with me, as I said before, are Mr. George C. Strong, chairman of the Suffolk County Farm Bureau and Mr. Amherst W. Davis, vice chairman of the Suffolk County Farm Bureau executive committee. We are representative farmers and potato growers of Suffolk County, Long Island. The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever been here before our committee in the past? Mr. WELLS. No. The CHAIRMAN. We are very much pleased to have you come. Mr. WELLS. Senator, I would like very much to thank you and your committee for the work you did in getting the golden nematode bill through the Senate. It should help us out and help the whole Nation with respect to the potato situation. We have voluntarily taken out of planting several thousand acres to assist in controlling the spread of this potato pest. Senator YOUNG. You can thank Senator Ives for a very effective job before the committee and on the Senate floor. Mr. WELLS. We do have a good Senator. The CHAIRMAN. There is no place on the Capitol here where the farmers can come and get more sympathetic consideration than they can here in the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. That has been my observation for a good many years. Mr. WELLS. Thank you. I speak as the representative of over 2,000 Suffolk County farmers. The Suffolk County Farm Bureau, of which I am an officer, has a paid membership for 1948 of 2,357 members. Nearly every farmer in the county is a member of the farm bureau. Suffolk County is one of the largest agricultural counties in the Nation. It ranks first in New York State and is exceeded in the value of its farm crops by only 11 other of the 3,054 counties in the United States. The CHAIRMAN. What is the principal crop in your county? Mr. WELLS. Yes. We also have large poultry and duck farms because of the market, too. The CHAIRMAN. You think they are doing pretty well? Mr. WELLS. Yes. Long Island is a good country and Suffolk County ranks as the third potato-producing county in the Nation. It produces more than half of the potatoes grown in New York State-a large producing State. I cite these figures because Long Island is frequently looked upon as a part of New York City, whereas we are actually a rural county with dirt farming as by far our most important source of income. I have been a farmer all my life and in fact-at a considerable personal sacrifice-I have had to stop my plowing and planting to come down here and appear before your committee. We, of course, are glad to have this opportunity. We have studied your bill and believe it is a good bill. We wish to commend your committee for the large amount of research and thought which must have gone into the writing of it. It convinces us that your committee understands fully that the future prosperity of the Nation depends on the prosperity of the farmer. Also, that your committee is fully aware that the future health, welfare, and the defense of the Nation depends on an adequate food supply. The more we read your bill, the more enthusiastic we become about its possibilities, but it has one great omission-it does not provide coordination of a large part of our American agricultural economy. It almost entirely leaves out the fruit, vegetable, and potato growers of the great agricultural Northeast, and thus denies to them the protection given to the farmers who grow the crops listed as basic commodities in the present bill. For these reasons, and reasons hereafter set forth, we ask that the word "potatoes" be inserted in section 203 (a), line 23, title III, after "peanuts" and before "and wool," and that such other changes be made in the bill as are necessary for inclusion of potatoes among the basic commodities. The CHAIRMAN. Is there any reason why that should not be done? Senator AIKEN. We did not include the nonbasic commodities in this bill because the proposed Commodity Credit Corporation charter bill gives the Commodity Credit Corporation authority to support the prices. However, the Commodity Credit Corporation itself has said. that that authority is so general they would prefer to have something written into this bill that we are considering here now to give them more specific direction as to what to support and at what levels. It has occurred to me that we are likely to have to direct them in this bill to support certain other nonbasic commodities at a rate comparable to that which is given to the basic commodities. If that is done, I assume it is not a name basic that you want as much as it is an equitable support level. Mr. WELLS. That is right, coordination of all agriculture. There are in the United States a little over 6 million farms. Of these 6 million farms, 3,102,231 or about one out of two farms grow potatoes, according to the 1945 United States Census. We therefore, strongly recommend that potatoes be included as one of the basic crops along with wheat, cotton, corn, tobacco, rice, peanuts, and wool; and that potatoes receive the same price-support treatment given these seven crops in your bill. In other words, we recommend and urge that potato prices be supported at 60 to 90 percent parity, the same as wheat, cotton, corn, bacco, rice, peanuts, and wool. to That potato growers want continued price support on potatoes is shown by a survey that we made last winter, in our country. Ninetytwo percent of our potato growers replying to our questionnaire stated that they wanted price support continued on potatoes at 60 to 90 percent of parity after the expiration of the Steagall amendment on December 31, 1948. The white potato is one of the three most important food crops in the United States. As you know, bread, meat, and potatoes are the most common items in the American diet. During the war there was no serious shortage or rationing of potatoes. They have been plentiful at a fair price. Potato growers did their part in a big way and in fact greatly helped to fill the gap caused by the shortage of other foods. We should keep them at adequate production. The need for the largest possible world production of food will continue for several years, as evidenced by the Marshall plan adopted by the Congress. The importance of potatoes as a food is shown by a statement released by the New York State College of Home Economics at Cornell University under date of February 13, 1948. I quote: Potatoes once a day is good practice. The supply is adequate, the price is down-and the nutrients are always high. Potatoes are a good buy the year round because they supply valuable minerals, vitamins, and calories to the diet. They are an inexpensive source of protein, iron, thiamine, vitamin C, and niacin. 75470-48- -13 |