IMPORTANCE OF RURAL AREAS

Turning now to your statement, I think most of this is well known to the committee. I shall not prolong it in the record. I deal with many subjects in my work as a Congressman, as does every other member of this committee. But I don't think we are getting over to the American people the importance of rural areas, both to their own well-being and to their standard of living. About 5 percent of our people are on the farm, which leaves about 95 percent free to do other things. I have mentioned this illustration before. You can make all sorts of speeches having to do with agriculture, and you get little, if any, attention to it. You can make one little statement about an SST or ABM or something about the war or something about a whole lot of other things, and it is played up all over the press or in the news media.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

I noticed that despite what we think, or I think, there is a great weakness in getting this message over to the American people. In spite of this difficulty, the budget calls for cutting your public relations by $350,000. That is not even a sneeze in the Defense Department. Here, however, that is a lot of money and I cannot understand it.

What is the effect of allocating to you a reduction of $350,000? Mr. FRICK. Well, course, we will continue with our public information effort. It was decided that there was some of our input that was maybe pushing ASCS, or call it public relations for our organization. This will be reduced.

We do not intend to reduce any of our public information effort. There will be no reduction there.

Mr. WHITTEN. These folks misled me. They tell me that you have to pay people before you can do that.

Mr. FRICK. Yes; but I believe I would admit that there is a tendency for an agency to build up itself. Here is where we are trying not to sell ourselves, but to inform the public of the activities of the agency. So maybe it does not hurt us to look closer. This is what we think, that we can get the job done this way.

Mr. WHITTEN. Like that concrete ditch out in Kern County; can you get by without that?

RURAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Mr. FRICK. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to make a further comment on REAP. We developed our program for this year no differently than in the past-from the grassroots through the State committee. We have a very sincere desire-and we hope we can strengthen the program across the country through further discussion-a sincere desire to service the land of this Nation because we do not want to see any negligence here. This is the real thrust of REAP, to service the needs of the cropland of the Nation for the future of this Nation and hopefully to convince the growers to put the priorities on those items that they would not finance by themselves. We had gotten into some practices that would have been financed by the grower without the help of the taxpayer's dollar. This is where we are trying to get the priorities in line.

Mr. WHITTEN. I would like to say, I don't want to repeat again, but I respect you and have the highest regard for you. But you are taking one side and I am taking another.

We want you to take the other side of that for the moment.

Under this program, the producers, the fellow who has possession of the land, puts up what amounts to about two-thirds and the Government about one-third. That is about the only program that I know of where the Government puts up only about one-third. I don't know of any place else where that is true in this type of program.

That is one thing. Here the record shows that farm income is down. I heard one of the members of this committee say the other day, "Mr. Secretary, you can tell us how well off the farmer is in your books, but I farm; you cannot tell me.'

The record shows that farm income is down. Whether you and I believe it or not when we read it or hear it or see the figures, the record shows that each year for the last 5 or 6 years 600,000 farm families quit and left the farms. What makes you think farming is so lucrative and so well-financed that the farmer will do what he didn't do when he got along better?

Mr. FRICK. We had some indication of this when we did try to go toward the more permanent practices and cut to 30 percent the cost share of some of the annual practices. We have some indications that as much was planted on an annual basis during the year of the reduced program participation as before.

I do not have the figures here to back me up, but from what little bit that we were able to look into it, in some instances this job was continued. So it is a matter of trying to get at those real needs of the cropland, or the farmers in the Nation, that won't be financed.

Mr. WHITTEN. You know, I have served as chairman of this committee for a good long time. One of the big problems we have had is in changing people's attitude about the land. This traces back, I believe, to the fact that when this country was settled there was only a handful of people, with about 80,000 Indians, and an unlimited, or so we thought, supply of natural resources. In the early days of this Nation we just went west and cut down all the trees.

The early period of our country's history was a time when there were cheap raw materials and many folks got to thinking that they were the real basis for our prosperity. Now we do not have those plentiful raw materials. I think getting the public mind away from that historical misconception is one of the major problems we have. The news media and folks running for office are so concerned about going after the 95 percent that are not on the farm, that it is mighty hard to get anybody to consider the problems of the 5 percent on the farm.

Mr. FRICK. I do think at times that we can try to make the farm areas aware of some problems that may be coming toward them. I presume at some point in time we will see rivers monitored for the fertilizer that goes down there and go back to the grower and say, you stop that. Our hope is that we will get some demonstrations going, again to try to keep these things back where they should be. Mr. WHITTEN. I had a man tell me something that disturbed me. The more I think about it, the more disturbed I get. He said if we

want to starve this country all you have to do is to pass a heavy inheritance tax. You cannot buy a farm now. If the inheritance tax becomes so high that you have to sell to pay the tax, you won't have any farmer left. That is an exaggeration, but there is a little kernel of truth in it. The people I know that are young farmers have inherited their farms. What is your experience? Do you find any man coming out of college and buying a farm?

Mr. FRICK. No, but doing a lot of renting.

Mr. WHITTEN. That is because the farmer left, isn't it?

Mr. FRICK. The farmer decided he could do better. He did not want to farm it himself, so he rents it to the young farmer. Mr. WHITTEN. Or came to Washington and went to work. (Discussion off the record.)

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES

Mr. WHITTEN. Turning back to the administrative expenses request, do you intend to spend more or less in administering the REAP program?

Mr. FRICK. To spend what?

Mr. WHITTEN. Any more in administering the act.

Mr. FELBER. For REAP, the projected workload for 1972 is about the same.

Mr. WHITTEN. When I was in college they called that the prompter. Mr. FELBER. We project the workload to be about the same.

Mr. WHITTEN. You don't think the farmers will quit because the Federal contribution is so small that it is not worthwhile fooling with it?

Mr. FRICK. I think some items that are being done with Federal assistance will get done without Federal assistance. That is a very difficult thing to measure.

I think it is one of the challenges that we continue to have and this program has had over the years.

WATER BANK PROGRAM

Mr. WHITTEN. What about the Water Bank Program. What is involved in that new program?

Mr. FRICK. Here we would seek advice, when and if this is funded, on how to administer it.

Mr. WHITTEN. How much would it take?

Mr. FRICK. How much money?

Mr. WHITTEN. Yes.

Mr. FRICK. This request is for $10 million which may be expended over 10 years.

Mr. WHITTEN. For administration.

Mr. FRICK. I am sorry.

Mr. FELBER. We have not put in anything additional for ASCS expenses. We do not know enough about how the Water Bank Program will operate and in what areas to make a specific estimate on the administrative expenses. It will be a small amount.

DAIRY AND BEEKEEPER INDEMNITY PROGRAM

Mr. WHITTEN. You touched on the Water Bank Act and the Dairy and Beekeeper Acts. You have not requested any money to finance or administer either?

Mr. FELBER. No, but there is a supplemental proposed.

Mr. FRICK. For administration we have not asked for additional funds for either one of those programs.

Mr. FELBER. Our major need for increased funds is to finance the anticipated increase in feed grain participation for next year. Mr. WHITTEN. They can handle this other in their spare time? Mr. FELBER. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTEN. How much spare time do they have?

Mr. FELBER. Very little, sir.

CCC FUNDS

Mr. WHITTEN. You are also requesting an increase of $2,770,000 of CCC funds. Explain this.

Mr. FELBER. As you may recall, there is 7 percent contingency reserve included in the CCC administrative expense limitation funds each year which can only be spent with the approval of the OMB. This year OMB had us apply that reserve to help cover the increases in pay. So we are asking for restoration of that $2.7 million. It will be there in case CCC has an unexpected increase in workload, and we will have funds to finance it.

This is not really an increase. This was released by OMB to help finance pay raises.

We are asking for restoration.

RURAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Mr. WHITTEN. Congress authorized $195.5 million for the rural environmental assistance program for 1971. How much of that was allocated to the States, and would you put in the record the amount to each State?

Mr. FRICK. Yes, we will.
(The information follows:)

The State allocations and the national total for the 1971 Rural Environmental Assistance Program are as follows:

1/ This total plus (1) $400,000 transferred to the Naval Stores Conservation Program and (2) $5,600,000 kept available for making the mandatory small cost-share increases equals $150,000,000, the portion of the $195,500,000 appropriated which was made available for the 1971 program.