Mr. HUDDLESTON. They have supported it to some extent.

Mr. POAGE. They sure have, and it has the same kind of markoff, but not the same kind of payback because you cannot get your money back under the wool bill. They just take it and use it for promotion.

Mr. McLAIN. I think to keep the record straight, the compulsory checkoff we have always been against. I think there will be another witness here that will back us up.

Mr. POAGE. Did you not support the bill last year that added 14 new comodities to those that could establish marketing orders which would not allow them to check off to promote commodities? Those happened to relate to vegetables and fruits. You supported that bill, did you not?

Mr. McLAIN. Not the compulsory part of the checkoff; no.

Mr. POAGE. You did not suport the part of it. You just said you were for the bill, and of course there are features of it that you did not like.

Mr. McLAIN. That is correct; we did not support the checkoff.

Mr. POAGE. Of course you could do the same thing with this bill if you wanted to. But it happens that this relates to cotton, and you can make a big issue out of this. Of course there is a lot of prejudice against cotton. A lot of people think that cotton is a southern crop and that it should have the same kind of treatment that most of the rest of the South gets. I think that cotton is the largest cash crop in the United States and is a national product. I think it is a commodity that brings in the largest cash returns of any crop in the United States, that it is worthy of consideration on a national basis. Do you?

Mr. HUDDLESTON. Are you asking me?

Mr. POAGE. I am asking Mr. McLain.

Mr. McLAIN. Certainly cotton is an important crop.

Mr. POAGE. Then why draw the distinction between cotton and walnuts? You support the bill when it comes to walnuts, do you not? You did support it, did you not?

Mr. MCLAIN. We supported the part that you are talking about, but not the compulsory checkoff.

Mr. POAGE. You supported the whole thing. You said "Pass the bill."

Mr. MCLAIN. That is correct, but we were against the checkoff.

The CHAIRMAN. Do we not have a compulsory checkoff inthe tobacco program where it is taken out of the warehouse, and the only way I can get it back is to ask for it back? It is the same principle exactly. same way in burley, is it not?

The

Mr. STUBBLEFIELD. Burley tobacco has a checkoff, Mr. Chairman. We have had it for years. There is no opposition to it that I can recall. There has never been any question on it.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir.

Mr. Huddleston, we thank you very
Mr. HUDDLESTON. I thank you, sir.

much.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anyone else I can accommodate here who has a reservation who must get out of town quickly. I did call the witnesses out of order as requested, but if not, we will go back and call the president of the Alabama Farm Bureau, Mr. J. D. Hays.

STATEMENT OF J. D. HAYS, PRESIDENT, ALABAMA FARM BUREAU Mr. HAYS. Mr. Chairman, my name is J. D. Hays, and I hope I enjoy my brief appearance before this committee. This year I will be planting my 29th continuous coton crop as an individual farmer in Madison County, Ala. That is in north Alabama. I have, of course, tried to participate in the various things that I thought would be of interest to cotton, and consequently of interest to me. I am still of the same opinion and the same position.

During this interim I have of course been interested in the National Cotton Council and these programs, as many of my other cohorts here have testified. I will continue to be interested in their programs.

In 1961 I was also elected as president of the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation, and so I am really appearing here on these two issues as an individual cotton producer, and also as president of the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation.

I concur in the testimony that has been given by my associates previously. The Alabama Farm Bureau Federation, meeting in its annual meeting in November in Birmingham on the 7th, 8th, and 9th reviewed the draft of the proposed cotton promotion legislation that was then available to us, and the resolutions committee did oppose by an appropriate resolution its endorsement of this legislation, and that is in our official policy booklet. I did not have available to me or to our organization the copy that the chairman introduced, 12322, since it was only introduced just a few days ago. But I find no difference in the opinion, Mr. Chairman, as I have polled our people hurriedly by telephone and by personal visits and with a few letters. I found no difference in their position from that originally adopted at their annual meeting in November, and with this current legislation.

I would say to you that there is a considerable amount of misunderstanding all the way around. There is a lot of apprehension and confusion and skepticism on the part of the grassroots growers. Generally I believe this is not really understood. We get accustomed to handling these facts as leaders or so-called leaders in the cotton areas, and while we may be conversant with many of the issues, the producer is not. The individual producer is not. And so I see a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding and apprehension. As a matter of fact, as a cotton producer, I am somewhat in the same category myself. I go out to the crossroads stores, I go out to the courthouse meetings, and first of all very, very few of them know really how much cotton they are going to try to plant under this present program. And even when I myself get the decision made 1 week after talking with some of my associates, my fellow farmers, I am about ready to decide that I have made an error, and that I had better refigure it and try another approach on actually how much cotton I am going to plant.

Now, I say all this to make this particular point here. To me if I want to buy something, I want to feel like I am getting value received. If I am going to spend my money for it, I feel like that I want to at least be assured that I am convinced that it is a good bargain.

The reason that there is not as wide a participation in the council's program and in its collections is simply this: the farmers are deciding they are not getting what they are buying.

The CHAIRMAN. What are you talking about, the money that they put into the council?

Mr. HAYS. That is exactly right, Mr. Chairman, that is exactly right.

The CHAIRMAN. And the money that they put into the Cotton Institute?

Mr. HAYS. Well, evidently so. You don't normally buy things that you are not

The CHAIRMAN. That is the point that I tried to make a while ago. Evidently they are not satisfied they are getting a dollar's worth for a dollar spent.

Mr. HAYS. But the point, Mr. Congressman, the producer has control of whether he buys or doesn't buy, and this assures the self-discipline in the program that will be effective as to how the money will be used.

I would also like to comment a little bit on this competitive situation among ginners. I have no farming interest other than cotton production. I don't sell any insecticides, I don't sell an chemicals, I don't buy any cotton, I don't sell any other than that which I produce. I don't gin any cotton. I don't deal in seed. But this matter of competition between gins is another issue that has been brought up here.

In the main, a farmer is a captive of a gin location. There may be two across the road, but in my area there are community gins, and they are single community gins in the main. I don't think the farmer is responsible for this position of taking responsibility for this competitiveness in the price of ginning. As a matter of fact, the shoe is on the other foot, and the ginner says to the farmer "if you come over to me and gin with me at my gin and leave your community gin then I will fx it so that this matter will be taken care of."

So I don't think this is entirely the fault of the individual cotton producer.

I say again, Mr. Chairman, that our organization has been actively supporting a number of promotional activities in our State. We support the red meat promotion program in our State, and we have supported the cotton council program in our State, and they have just initiated, the CPI, its program in our State.

I believe that we have not only answered the call each time it has come, but have volunteered additionally from among our leadership. But in some way or another it has failed to convince the folks that they are getting what they are buying. I believe, in my opinion, that that is the source of the discontent and the dissatisfaction. In any event, I am on record as representing the wishes of the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation and expressing to this committee the fact that they have by appropriate resolution opposed this kind of legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. We appreciate your bringing the views of the Alabama Farm Bureau, but according to the statement you just made, you don't agree with those views because you say that the job has not been done. We need to do something that has not been done and that is to put on a promotion campaign and to broaden our research programs; isn't that right?

Mr. HAYS. Well, I don't think we have done the job, and I don't think you are going to do it with any single issue or single program.

We have been engaged in so many of these programs, Mr. Congressman, that I suppose the echos of the testimony that has been offered in this room and in these other rooms, some of it still may be bouncing around, echoing up and down. But we have saved and saved and saved cotton until we have got 1512 million bales in the warehouse. The CHAIRMAN. What do you mean you save? You saved the cotton?

Mr. HAYS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You just couldn't sell it?

Mr. HAYS. Well, that is what I

The CHAIRMAN. It isn't a question of saving. It is piling up in the warehouses.

Mr. HAYS. The net result is the same, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You made a statement here that Mr. Poage was blaming the farmers for this unfair competition among the ginners. He wasn't blaming the farmers at all. The farmers are doing the natural thing. If somebody gives them an inducement to take his cotton across the road to the gin and get $1 a bale back on it they have been doing that. You certainly can't blame the farmer for that. This bill would tend to correct that situation. There are no further questions.

We thank you very much.

Mr. POAGE. I would like to pursue that just a moment, Mr. Chairman, because I think that either Mr. Hays misunderstood me or I expressed myself very inadequately. Did you understand me to say that I was blaming the farmer for this competitive situation among the gins?

Mr. HAYS. The statement has been made that it created such a competitive situation among gins that the farmers asked for the refund. Mr. POAGE. I am just simply trying to find out what you understood, because if I made that statement-gave that impression

Mr. HAYS. I was so intent upon my point Mr. Congressman I don't know just exactly how you stated it.

Mr. POAGE. You what?

Mr. HAYS. I said I was so intent upon my own point and my own thoughts that I don't recall exactly how you stated it.

Mr. POAGE. I hope that that is the situation, because certainly I had no intention of blaming the farmer for this situation. In fact, I did my best to point out that the competitive situation among the gins was so intense that once a gin failed to make the collection, that the neighborhood gins were going to be forced into the same practice, and that that practice inevitably was bound to spread all across the Cotton Belt, and I certainly didn't attribute that to any malice on the part of farmers or any bad spirit on their part. I simply assumed that farmers are as intelligent as other people are, and that if I can get my cotton ginned for $1 a bale less at Mr. Jones' gin, assuming that he does me a comparable job of ginning, I am going to take it there. That is human nature, whether you are a farmer or whether you are a banker.

Mr. TEAGUE. Mr. Poage, if you take all your business from me I am going into soybeans or cattle.

Mr. POAGE. I think you are right and I think that is what is happening to many of our gins right now. The profit is so thin in many

areas-now of course I recognize that in the heavy producing areas such as the Delta and the High Plains, that that would not be so true as it is in areas like my own, where the production is less and where the competition is even more severe. But it is this intensity of competition among the gins that I am talking about, and I am not blaming either the farmers or the gins. I am simply facing the facts which I gather that you were running away from.

Now it is a fact, isn't it, that many of the gins are today getting a very small amount of cotton, hardly enough to justify the runs. That is a fact, isn't it?

Mr. HAYS. Well, I can say this to you, Mr. Poage. I know of one individual gin in my area, within my area of production, that gins 11,000 bales, and as far as I know, this is one of the largest that we have. It has continued to increase its ginning throughout for several years. Then I can recall others that are down to less than 500 bales, and they don't do a very good job of ginning. We all know this.

Mr. POAGE. And it is a fact, isn't it, Mr. Hays, that the great majority of the gins of the United States are today probably ginning less than 500 bales, aren't they?

Mr. HAYS. Well, I wouldn't be prepared to speculate or to estimate on that at all, Mr. Poage. I would say this in regard to the collections and the competitive situation. I think it is well established that we made progress in spite of the competitive situation, if such did exist, for a number of years because collections increased and assessments went up.

Mr. POAGE. That is right, and when the competition between the gins got as severe as it has in the last 2 or 3 years

Mr. HAYS. Gins created this competition.

Mr. POAGE. What?

Mr. HAYS. The farmers didn't. The gins created the competition, the farmers didn't.

Mr. POAGE. I made no suggestion that the farmers created it. That is exactly the point I want to clear up. I made no suggestion that farmers created it. Of course, gins and the cotton program created it, and the facts are that there are thousands of gins over the United States ginning less than 500 bales, aren't there?

Mr. HAYS. I wouldn't know.

Mr. POAGE. That is a fact, isn't it?
Mr. HAYS. I wouldn't know, sir.
Mr. POAGE. You don't know?

The CHAIRMAN. May I interrupt for a minute.

One of the first witnesses appearing before this committee on this bill was Mr. T. C. Cortwright, Jr., of Rolling Fork, Miss. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Cotton Producers Institute and chairman of the board of the National Cotton Council of America, and he brought this matter to the attention of this committee and let me read one or two short excerpts from his statement. In talking about this bill he brought in the competition between the gins as Mr. Poage has presented it. He said:

This is the one great defect in the present CPI approach that we must correct. We must effect a uniform collection to eliminate the competitive factor among processors and handlers. We must have help from the Congress in establishing a suitable mechanism for bringing this about.