Data on yields and economic productivity by soils groups would enable vastly improved estimates of national and regional land use projections under different assumptions regarding population, foreign trade, economic growth and production technology. Guides for land use adjustment programs could be obtained. For example, the needed acreage adjustments to balance supplies with requirements could be determined under alternative program assumptions about the quality of lands which would be transferred from present uses.

The proposed research would provide valuable basic data for watershed planning.

Within the next 10 years, comprehensive plans will be prepared for most of our major river basins. Data from the proposed research would provide a base from which the agricultural potentials of these basins could be evaluated.

The information would also be useful in analysis of urban growth and the shifts of land from farm to urban uses.

The completion of the National Inventory of Conservation Needs has provided the first comprehensive physical description of our national land resource base. With a relatively small additional investment in economic interpretation these data can be given vastly greater meaning and significance through their use in an improved framework for analyzing national and regional problems of land use adjustment and resource development.

Mr. KOFFSKY. Improved agricultural production technology, increased urbanization, and improved levels of living are causing historical land use patterns to change rapidly. Our growing population with more money to spend will need additional land for urban, industrial, recreational, and public facilities. At the same time we can expect our farm production to continue to outrun demand for the foreseeable future. In response to these changing demands, land use adjustments will take place which will have a tremendous impact on agriculture. Research is needed to guide the use and development of land resources along lines that will be most advantageous to farmers and supply other needs as well.

The Economic Research Service has made several studies over the past decade of future requirements for land and water resources. Based upon assumptions of population growth, economic growth, and adoption of production technology, these studies have projected acreage requirements for the various major uses of land in the United States. However, in none of these studies has it been possible to give attention to the interrelations between economic activity and land requirements within river basins or other regions; they have not identified the nature and magnitude of prospective regional adjustments in the use of land.

With improved techniques of analysis and basic data on the productivity of land in alternative uses, many of the inadequacies of previous studies can be overcome.

The charts I have will illustrate how we would analyze national land use requirements. Please refer to chart 1. The upper part of this chart [indicating] shows the demand determinants the factors that should be considered in determining the future demand for agricultural products. Let me illustrate how this type of analysis would be made. For example, if we wanted to analyze the changes that would take place by 1980, as we did recently for the Department's Land and Water Policy Committee, we used a population projection of 261 million, an increase of about 45 percent over that in 1960. Consumer income and demand would also rise and our exports would continue to increase. From these projections our analysis indicated that the total demand for agricultural products for 1980 might be from 45 to 50 percent higher than in 1959.

Now we can break this total agricultural demand down in terms of requirements for crops and for livestock products. This analysis indicated that crop production would need to increase something like 42 percent to meet these expanding demands. The requirements for meat and livestock products would rise faster than for crops.

Similar estimates were made for forest products and for nonagricultural uses of land. From these, considering the changes in productivity and yields, we can estimate the land requirements for various uses, such as cropland, pastureland, forestland, and various nonagricultural uses.

Mr. WHITTEN. Not to take issue with you in the least, but do I understand that is predicated upon us maintaining an export program in line with the present levels or is that weighted in any way to indicate that we will become more and more an industrial nation with less and less attention to the exports of raw materials?

I would regret to see that because of the adjustment that it would But I am asking have you weighted that in any way because those things may happen in our country, or is that clearly based on present exports which relate to domestic consumption?

Mr. KOFFSKY. It is present exports related to the expected growth in the demand for our exports of farm products.

Mr. WHITTEN. In other words, you count on the export segment to increase at the same rate as you expect domestic demand to increase? Mr. KOFFSKY. As of this time, we do not expect that our exports of farm products will increase quite as rapidly as the domestic demand. But this is an area of study in which we hope to intensify our research. Our present estimates may very well prove to be on the low side, Mr. Whitten.

Mr. WHITTEN. I was just trying to find out what you were talking about so we in turn might understand it a little better.

Mr. KOFFSKY. I will continue with our illustration in chart 1. In view of the advance in technology and the uptrend in crop yields, the prospective increase in requirements for farm products by 1980 could well be produced on something like 51 million fewer acres of cropland than we had in 1959, the base year for which we have land and use data. In terms of grassland, pasture, and range we would require something like 18 million more acres by 1980, reflecting the buildup in livestock production.

For forest land we may require somewhat fewer total acres but somewhat more commercial forests.

Farmsteads and roads would remain constant, at about 10 million

acres.

Turning to the nonagricultural uses of land, for recreation and wildlife, our analysis indicates a projected need for an increase of about 23 million acres.

For business, industrial, and residential uses an increase of about 21 million acres is involved.

It was estimated that public facilities and installations would require an increase of about 5 million acres.

Now a part of those needs for land for business, industrial, and residential uses could be met from land which is presently not in agricultural uses. This could be desert or unused land, for example. Thus, we would expect this nonagricultural category of "miscellaneous other uses" would be reduced by something like 11 million acres.

So we have big adjustments facing us in land use for the Nation as a whole.

Mr. WHITTEN. You are quoting a lot of millions to us. That does not appear on your chart. You are speaking from memory?

Mr. KOFFSKY. I was speaking from memory to illustrate how such an analysis would be made. The figures will appear in the testimony. We can put them on the chart, if you wish.

Mr. WHITTEN. No; I was just wondering. I presumed you were speaking from memory.

Mr. KOFFSKY. We have discussed how we can analyse the total adjustments in land use for the United States that might occur by 1980. But chart 2 shows that the question remains as to what is the impact on each region, State and local areas, and how adjustments in one region relate to another. Answers to such questions need to be provided to strengthen our analysis of river basin and watershed development potentials. So far such studies have not been able to take adequate account of the agricultural productivity and development potentials of other river basins. In other words, because of this lack, each river basin has been treated more or less as a separate entity. There is a real need here for an analytical framework which can relate one river basin to another, one region to another, and to indicate how water and land development and adjustments in land use in one region might affect developments and needs in other regions.

NATIONAL ANALYSIS OF WATER RESOURCES

Now this need for a better framework of national and interregional economic analysis in support of river basin and watershed development has been recognized by the Secretaries of Agriculture, Army, Interior, and Health, Education, and Welfare, who would comprise the proposed Water Resources Council. Secretary Freeman has just received a letter from these Secretaries expressing an interest in having the Department of Agriculture undertake such analyses as I have been discussing.

The letter points out that at the request of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, the Secretaries who would comprise the proposed Water Resources Council have prepared and submitted to the Bureau of the Budget a coordinated program for water resource planning which contemplates completion of comprehensive river basin plans for all major river basins by the mid-1970's.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to put this letter in the record.
Mr. WHITTEN. We will be glad to have you do so.
(The letter referred to follows:)

Hon. ORVILLE L. FREEMAN,

Secretary of Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.

MARCH 5, 1963.

DEAR MR. SECRETARY: You will recall that, at the request of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, the Secretaries who would comprise the proposed Water Resources Council have prepared and submitted to the Bureau of the Budget a coordinated program for water resource planning. The program outlined by the four Departments contemplates completion of comprehensive river basin plans by the mid-1970's. These plans would include longrun economic projections of economic development, translation of such projections into demands for water and related land resource uses, hydrologic projections of water availability both as to quantity and quality, and projections of the availability of

related land resources, so as to outline the characteristics of the projected water and related land resource problems and the general approaches that appear appropriate for their solution.

Economic base studies are an essential part of the proposed comprehensive framework and detailed studies of river basins. There is urgent need for establishing a national framework of water and related land resource requirements and potentials for economic development and growth to provide orientation for river basin economic base studies. At present there is no provision for developing the necessary national framework for integrating river basin economic base studies and related projections of water demands. Such national analyses should be made at appropriate intervals by the Federal agencies best equipped for this task. River basin economic base studies and related projections of water demand should be made, in whole or in part, by Federal agencies or by nongovernmental organizations under contractual arrangements, as most appropriate in the circumstances of each case.

In considering how to accomplish the necessary research and investigation for the economic base studies, it was planned that the Department of Agriculture would take responsibility for analyses of national and basin or regional agricultural requirements and potentials, and it would be desirable if the Department of Commerce could take the responsibility for economic analyses and projections for the nonagricultural segments of the national and regional economies. There is a need to obtain a desirable balance of research appropriations and planning funds so that the required economic analyses are available to meet needs in planning river basins along with other needs for such analyses. This need was brought to the attention of the Bureau of the Budget and we understand that sufficient funds for a nucleus staff have been included in the budget estimates of the Economic Research Service. Such funds would provide a small continuing staff which could prepare the national analyses and projections of agricultural requirements and a framework for river basin and regional analyses and projections of agricultural requirements and potentials. On a continuing basis the work financed by direct appropriation could be supplemented by reimbursement with planning funds for specific economic base studies as they will be undertaken in each river basin.

Because we consider this basic analytical effort extremely important in completing river basin plans in such a way that they have meaningful relations to national requirements, the three other Secretaries who would serve with you on the proposed Water Resources Council would like to give strong support to your budget request.

A similar letter is being sent to the Secretary of Commerce.

CYRUS R. VANCE,

Secretary of the Army. ANTHONY J. CELEBREZZE,

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.
STEWART L. UDALL,

Secretary of the Interior (Chairman).

LAND USE BY COMMERCIAL FARMS

Mr. WHITTEN. I made this point with the Secretary. The new program sounds like it may save resources, provide recreation, where a fellow can go fishing, provide fishing sites, and all that. It probably will help the city population to have some outside provisions for recreation, and I am all for that, living in town myself. At the same time it may let those farmers who are not doing too well now have some outside means of income provided all this works out and the funds are forthcoming from the Congress. But it still makes me think that the prime direction is away from the commercial farmers who really make for this standard of living we have, and on which the city people and all the small farmers you might say are dependent.

Now if we do all these things that you are talking about, other than being an outlet for the expanded need for recreation in the cities and a means of livelihood for those farmers that are on the fringe areas,

95910-63-pt. 3

what in the world does it do for American agriculture as such which feeds the Nation?

Mr. KOFFSKY. Well, Mr. Whitten, one of the big blocks of land, of course, is still the 400-odd million acres that are required for cropland, and the proper use of that will enhance the ability of the commercial farmer to make his way and to improve the standard of living for the

consumer.

Mr. WHITTEN. Now that could be, but I think the record for the last few years shows that something over 50 percent of the farmers produced less than 9 percent of the commercial farm commodities. Now that is a mighty small percentage of the overall need. It strikes me that, if you took every one of them out of business through diverting them into growing minnows, serving as guides, renting golf courses, it would not create a big dent in our commercial production. Neither would you do much to improve the market for commercial production. In other words, are we not emphasizing that which may be sound in its own right if it works, but there is not a whole lot of an agricultural program involved in it?

Mr. KOFFSKY. Mr. Chairman, there are, of course, two really distinct problems in American agriculture: One, the commercial agricultural problem, and that relates particularly to the 40 percent of the farmers who produce 87 percent of all the commodities going to market. This is one set of problems. Another set of problems relates to the other 60 percent of the farmers who produce only 13 percent of farm products going to market. They generally have low incomes unless their farm incomes are supplemented by incomes from other

sources.

Mr. WHITTEN. I know it is easier to sit on this side and ask the questions than it is to answer them. But basically, if our standard of living is based upon these commercial farmers, if they are the ones that serve as the principal market for industry, if they are the ones that produce so well that we can spend 63 percent of our total governmental income on defense and international problems, is it not a lot better to keep that segment healthy from the standpoint of the whole American people, as compared to the type of approach which you have?

Now votewise and otherwise this approach you have may be the better one. But it strikes me that the merit it may have does not touch the problem which American agriculture has of keeping on an even keel with industry and labor.

There are lots of places I could direct that question. But the Economic Research Services is where I think the answers to this type of thing would come nearer resting than anywhere else.

Mr. KOFFSKY. Well, Mr. Chairman, the land use problem relates to both sectors of American agriculture, the commercial and the noncommercial. The commercial certainly has an interest because the acreage of cropland that will be needed for commercial products is going to be reduced, and at the same time maintaining incomes for the others presents a real problem as well. There are alternative uses elsewhere as well as in agriculture for some of this land, and what this research would point toward would be the most effective kind of use of this land.

Mr. WHITTEN. In other words, there would be a pretty good relief program during the period of adjustment while they got into some