Mr. BRECKINRIDGE. Let me read a portion of this.

The substance of the letter is to the effect that the Department already has the authority to undertake the studies which are suggested and outlined.

It then goes ahead to say:

Consequently, it seems most wise to await both the results of the study outlined in the bill, which we could undertake within existing authority, and the collection of available economic evidence from other sources prior to seeking legislation or otherwise carrying out educational or action programs.

My question is this. Has the Department indicated to you that they will undertake the study outlined in the bill? And, if so, within what time frame and with what sort of conclusions in prospect?

Mr. BAUCUS. The Department has been very vague. We have asked that question.

They say they are undertaking one, but they do not specifically say when and what date they will complete that kind of study. Let me get to the main thrust of that letter.

The Department already has sufficient authority, and that there is no need for the bill.

It is true that the Department does have some authority, but the whole point of the bill is for Congress to set some agricultural policy, particularly in the area of small farm operations and direct the USDA to spend a lot more time looking at the needs of small farmers then it presently does or that it has done in the past.

The USDA, under the Smith-Lever Act, has near sufficient authority to do these things already, but I am suggesting that the Department has not exercised its present responsibility under that authority. This bill would direct the USDA to spend a little more time thinking about the needs of the little guy as well as the needs of the big guy.

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE. We have had some problem with the Department in another area relating to the annual goals report, as you know. Some of us have come up with legislation to arrive at the specificity which would encourage that kind of attention to detail which you are talking about here.

It might be useful to consider the addition of such provisions to the matter that you present to the committee.

Mr. BAUCUS. That would be a good suggestion, and I would welcome that and would support that.

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. ROSE. I would only add one thing further.

Mr. Baucus, I have a copy of a letter that was sent to you by Mr. Knebel in seemingly direct answer to the question that Mr. Breckinridge put to you.

In the fourth paragraph of his letter to you dated June 10, he says: There are no plans at present to provide for a study or survey on a state-bystate basis as provided for in subparagraph (a) of your bill.

"The intent of our initial comments," which I take it are the comments which Mr. Breckinridge has just read from, "is to suggest that a need should be established prior to seeking authorization for an educational or action program."

Mr. BAUCUS. I thank the chairman for pointing out that letter. I meant to, but I did not know how much time I had left.

The essential thrust of that letter-and I would like to have it included in the record-is that there is a need. The Secretary, in fact,

says so.

Mr. ROSE. Without objection, the letter dated June 10, 1976, from Mr. Knebel, Under Secretary of the USDA, to Mr. Baucus, will be inserted in the record.

[The letter referred to follows:]

Hon. MAX BAUCUS,

House of Representatives.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULture,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY,
Washington, D.C., June 10, 1976.

DEAR MR. BAUCUS: This is in response to your letter of May 26 concerning clarification of four statements in our letter of April 22 to Chairman Thomas S. Foley recommending that H.R. 12917 not be enacted.

We believe that the present authority provided by the Smith-Lever Act, as amended, would enable us to carry out the intent of H.R. 12917. In addition, the survey portion of the Bill is similar to the functions carried out under authorities of Statistical Reporting Service and Economic Research Service.

Extension of the program with small farmers would not, in our opinion, provide significant increases in the overall national agricultural productivity. It could, however, provide for significant improvement in both the productivity and the level of living of small farmers who would be reached by the program.

There are no plans at present to provide for a study or survey on a state-bystate basis as provided for in Subparagraph A of H.R. 12917. The intent of our initial comments is to suggest that a need should be established prior to seeking authorization for an educational or action program.

The $3 million estimate is based on a minimal effort needed to initiate the requirements of the Bill. We estimate that an average of two persons per state would be required to implement the survey and reporting requirements of H.R. 12917 at an acceptable level. We estimate a cost of $30,000 per person to cover the cost of personnel and related support costs.

The Office fo Management and Budget advises that there is no objection to the presentation of this report from the standpoint of the Administration's

program.

Sincerely,

JOHN A. KNEBEL, Under Secretary.

Mr. ROSE. Thank you. We appreciate your testimony this afternoon. Mr. BAUCUS. Thank you.

Mr. Rose. At this time with the permission of the subcommittee, I would like to call another of our colleagues who is not listed on our witness list, the Honorable Gillis Long, a Democrat from Louisiana, who has his own testimony to present to us.

We will then hear from Mr. John Cox, director of the Louisiana Extension Service.

Mr. Long, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. GILLIS LONG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

Mr. LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for taking me out of order.

I want to commend you and the members of this subcommittee and, particularly Congressman Baucus, for opening up this inquiry into the role which research and extension could-and in my opinion should-be playing in solving small farm problems. I wish to express my very deep and personal interest in what the committee is trying to accomplish on behalf of small farmers.

Not only do I represent many of these small farms, perhaps nearly as many as any one in the U.S. House of Representatives, but I also grew up on a farm of the type which we are discussing here.

As you know, and as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, I am here today for the specific purpose of presenting to the subcommittee a formal statement prepared by Mr. John Cox, the Director of the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service.

Mr. Cox very much wanted to be with us today to take part in these discussions, and I'm sorry that he was unable to make the trip.

He would have been able to provide all of us with some valuable insight into the kinds of contributions land grant universities are capable of making to the future of America's small farmers and, hence, to the future of American farming in general.

I have known Mr. Cox personally for many years and have known him to be not only highly knowledgeable in this particular field but I've also known him to be committed to the belief that the small family farmer was, and still is, the backbone of American agriculture. I think you will find this statement to be very thorough and useful in your endeavors.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, before submitting Mr. Cox's statement, I would like to stress a couple of points which I feel are important.

First, the thrust of Mr. Cox's statement echoes a theme that you undoubtedly find winding throughout the testimony you receive on this matter. I want to emphasize it here, because it is a clear message from those people within the various States who work with small farmers daily on a 1-to-1 basis and because this message differs substantially from the message we've been hearing here from the Washington-based policymaking levels of the USDA.

That message is that the small farmer-the low-income farmercan be a successful farmer with a little help from his freiends.

Title V of the Rural Development Act gives the Extension Service at the land grant universities the mission of being that friend.

These institutions are ready to move, provided that they have an adequate staff and that they have adequate funds to carry out the research and extension work which they are entrusted with.

That's really why we are here today. The administration has so consistently failed to provide the tools for this purpose, it has become necessary to explore the possibility of mandating the functions under title V to see that the program is not forgotten and that it is carried out.

I know that if John Cox were here, he would tell you that he feels the No. 1 priority in carrying out this mandate is to get more people into the field now so that we can begin to deliver information and advice that's already available through small farm research.

The Louisiana Extension Service has special programs to assist small farmers, and they have been making some important progress in this regard.

It is my understanding that what Louisiana now needs most is the means to build small professional staffs in each parish and to develop them around a locally based network of paraprofessionals.

These would be people within the local community who, with the proper direction and supervision and coordination, would fulfill the

final outreach function and communicate with the farmers at the local level in language they can understand.

I think it's particularly important to point out here that the sucess of such paraprofessionals depends directly on the level of financial and staff support that is given to the paraprofessionals at the professional level.

The multiplier effect of the paraprofessionals would be most significant. But there is also what I call the cross-fertilization effect, which is even more important, I believe, in reaching the low-income farmers if those who live in my district are any indication of those who live all over the United States.

Take, for example, the instance where John Smith notices that his friend, Jim Jones, who lives up the road and has a similar-type farm is using new methods that seem to be improving his production. John Smith, in just a few weeks, will be coming around and asking questions about the new operation and seeking out the new knowledge that his friend has found.

The essence of this theory, of course, is that the small-and often very low-income-farmer who is reluctant to change his ways because of the difficulty of communicating with him as to why he should change his ways, will find it much easier to accept the outside contact that is necessary to upgrade and improve his operation through this method. If you can get one farmer to do it in a community, it will go to the next and the next and the next.

It is no longer a case of being patronized or a question of Washington telling him what to do or Baton Rouge telling him what to do. It's a question of seeing his neighbor doing it and seeing it work.

It's a self-motivated decision that will make it infinitely easier for him to learn and to apply the new techniques. Certainly, as we all know, there is a certain contagion in success.

Finally, I would like to urge the committee to continue its active leadership in pursuing some measure of equity for the small family farmer.

I testified at length before hearings which this committee held earlier this year to review the change by census in the definition of "farm." The purpose of those hearings was to open the public record on the present efforts at USDA to meet the needs of small farmers and to prevent any further erosion of support for these farmers.

The hearings that you are holding today are a logical extension of these proceedings, and I urge you to continue to follow through on this through either additional hearings here, through field hearings, or through any appropriate mechanism that you may feel is warranted. As a member of the executive committee of the Congressional Rural Caucus, I can assure you that we welcome any opportunity to work with you in this regard.

I thank you for your attention and your indulgence. I hope that something I have said here today may prove helpful to you as you begin to explore the various avenues to improved and expanded research and extension efforts.

With the committee's approval and your approval, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit Mr. Cox's statement for the record at this time.

I commend it to you highly.

Mr. ROSE. Thank you, Mr. Long.

74-823-76- -2

Without objection, the statement of Mr. Cox will be made a part of the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cox follows:]

STATEMENT OF JOHN A. Cox, DIRECTOR, LOUISIANA COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE

We appreciate having this opportunity to provide testimony supporting Congressman Baucus' Amendment to Section 502C: Title V of the Rural Development Act of 1972. Please note that the following statement relates to the situation as we perceive it to be in Louisiana.

SMALL FARM SITUATION-LOUISIANA 1976

Following the national trend, the average size farm in Louisiana is increasing. The average Louisiana farm increased from 90 acres in 1950 to 231 acres in 1969 and is projected to have 335 acres in 1976.

Louisiana has many small farmers, like most states in the Southeast Region. According to the 1969 census, there were 42,269 farms in Louisiana that year, a decrease of 32 percent from the figures for 1964. Farms with $10,000 or less gross sales accounted for $67,295,000 or 14 percent of total sales. There were 32,321 farms, 76.4 percent of the total, with gross sales of $10,000 or less. Of these 32,321 farms, 22,194 were classified as part-time and class six.

Table 1 shows a range in the number of farms in selected size categories up to 140 acres. In all size categories presented in Table 1 the number is decreasing over the years. These categories are decreasing for two reasons. The majority are leaving the farm, the others are becoming larger and progressing to larger size categories.

TABLE 1.-NUMBERS AND PERCENT OF TOTAL FARMS BY SELECTED SIZE CATEGORIES, 1969, 1964 AND 1959

Table 2 shows the situation based on income. It should be noted that the number of farms in the lower income classes are decreasing, but 2, 1B and 1A Class farms are increasing. The lower income farmers are leaving the farm or moving up the economic classification.

TABLE 2.-NUMBER OF FARMS BY SELECTED CENSUS ECONOMIC CLASSES

The 1969 Census of Agriculture shows the following numbers by race for all farms in classes 1 to 6.

In Louisiana there are 6 low income white farmers for each such Negro farmer. A recent study by the University of Tennessee shows that in the Southeast there are 8 low income white farmers for each Negro farmer.