r< u.«!l ' ‘ ftM , n.hn'l ynL«nc r 'l T 14—Lancaster Farming, Friday, May 24, 1957 Benson Calls Committee Report ‘Argumentive, Misleading’ ih Letter h Following is the text of a ‘letter from Secretary of Agricul ture Ezra Taft Benson to the Hon. Jamie L. Whitten, Chair man, Agriculture Subcommittee, House Committee on Appropria tions, regarding a report on the 1958 Agricultural Appropriations Bill: I have read with interest and disappointment the report is sued by you on May 10 in behalf of the Committee on Appropria tions of the House of Representa tives regarding the 1958 appro priation for the Department of Agriculture and the Farm Credit Administration. I am sony to see that what might be expected to be a factual document contains so much ar gumentative and sometimes mis leading material. It is both dis turbing and confusing also to ob serve the amalgamation of the appropnative and legislative pro cesses within the report of the PASTURES For year round grazing sow a Swiss Permanent Pasture. Ready to pasture in 8 weeks. No more reseeding. We also have an excellent Hay—Pasture Silage Mix 2-3 cows per acre grazing. Casupa Super Green Pastures. FRED FREY QUARRYVILLE, PA. ST 6-2235 , ! Here’s real top-speed baling. You can turn out as much as 10 tons per hour with this new Oliver twine tie Model 60—even in small, hilly, irregular fields. A short-coupled, "pivot-balanced” PTO drive is the answer. You can cramp the tractor wheels right up to the bale case, roll around the sharpest comer without letup. You never need to shut off PTO power. You save time on every turn you make...get your hay safely in bales when it’s at its best. There are many other new features you’ll want to see—so come in scon. Look over the . new swinging drawbar, new weather- numj proof twine can, new smooth-action shuttle brake, new over-running clutch I j (extra), now safety devices. Engine v —' model also available. Farmersville Equipment Co. Ephrata, R.D. 2 E. L. Herr Peach Bottom G. Hershey Son Manheim. RD. 1 N. Appropriation Committee. The establishment of limitations on the Soil Bank in future years is an attempt to legislate on farm policy before the program has been given a fair opportunity to succeed. With two of the statements in the Committee Report I fully agree. First, I am glad to note that the Committee states that chang es in the farm program are need ed. My letter of May 2 and the accompany document which was submitted to Senator EHender provide a detailed analysis and discussion of the inadequacies of the old basic features of pre sent legislation which has acre age restrictions as one of its foundation stones. Second, I agree that acreage allotments have not controlled production. It is true that acreage controls can, to a degree, restrict the out put of a particular crop. But con trols have had little effect on total farm production. Last year, we had acreage con trols in operation on all the basic crops. Yet total qutput reached an all-time record. Generally, when a farmer is restricted on acreage, he picks his best land, fertilizes heavily, uses modern methods, and increases the yield per acre- And he uses the acres taken out of one crop for the production of other crops. With modern technolpgj . acres are no longer an effective'limit on agricultural production. The technological revolution is the new dimension in farm policy. This process is irreversible. A hundred years ago, one farm worker in the U S. fed himself and three otheis Today he feeds •istteJ e ! no'2nea | himself and 20 others. The up ward pressure of productivity has been going on for a long time but the revolutionary effects became explosive during World War II and have continu ed ever since. It might be possible to work out regulations which would be stiff enough to really control production. But the evidence of 25 years is that farmers do not want such controls and the Con gress will not enact them. Controls have been watered down by law to such a point that they do not really control pro duction. Even a cursory examina tion of the legal minimum acre age provisions for most of the basic crops reveals that these allotments will not overcome the effects of increasing produc tion efficiency. Even if controls worked pro perly for the allotment crops, which they do not, these allot ment crops bring in only one fourth of our farm income. Ob viously we cannot control total production by controlling one fourth of our output. This is part icularly true since the law allows resources which are shifted out of the controlled crops to be used for the production of other crops X am glad to see m the-report such fundamentally true state ments as - “ The farmer, too, must have fair return for his investment and his labor. However, he should have a fair return for his investment and his labor. How ever, he should have such a re turn from the market place in stead of the Treasury-’1 “ an entirely new legislative approach must be developed if the present conditions are to be corrected ” “ any new program which is finally adopted should let the farmer farm ” I was grateful also for the land words of approval for the efforts of the Department in several fields. There are a number of points in the Committee Reports, how ever, which I strongly disagree First, I cannot agree with the report when it attempts to attri bute the lack of effectiveness of the 1956 Soil Bank to an inher ent weakness of the program. It should be noted that the Secre tary of Agriculture is required to administer Jaws as they are passed by the Congress. The Sec retary of Agriculture does not write the legislation. Therefore, when this report states that there were very little results from the expenditures for the 1956 pro gram, it must be borne in mind that the implementation of the Soil Bank Program for 1956 was contrary to my expressed wishes I pointed out in correspond ence available to your Commit tee that the passage of the Agri cultural Act of 1956 was too late to result in any accomplishments in 1956 It was at the insistence of the House conferees that pro visions were inserted in the Ag ricultural Act of 1956 requiring that the Secretaiy operate'!© the best of his ability a Soil Bank Program for 1956. The conferees’ report recognized that very little in the way of results was expect ed for 1956. Any criticism of the operation of the Soil Bank Act for the 1956 year should be con sidered in the light of available history. The record on this mat ter is so clear that the failure of the Committee .on Appropriat ions to recognize these facts is difficult to understand. Second, the Committee implies that farmers increased produc tion as farm prices have fallen. This is directly contrary to the best economic thinking and to an analysis by the Congress, as reflected in the Agricultural Act of 1938, as amended. Under the legislative findings covering pea nuts in Section 357 of the above Act, the folowing statements ap pears* “As the quantity of peanuts marketed in the channels of in terstate and foreign commerce increases above the quantity of peanuts needed for cleaning and shelling, the prices at which all peanuts are marketed are de pressed to low levels. These low prices tend to cause the quantity of peanuts available for market ing in later years to be less than normal, which in turn tends to cause relatively high prices.” Available statistical evidence dees not support the concept that if prices fall, farmers gen- ?fi. , ia/oiTr>FJA erally will increase their pro duction. While we can agree that production has increased in re cent years, we have every reason to believe that it Would have in creased even more if supports had been higher. In fact, increas ing efficiency resulting in large part' from advancing technology would have been further stimu lated by higher prices. It has been demonstrated that individual commodities respond more readily to the stimulus of price than does aggregate agri cultural production. Certainly, dunng the war, higher price supports were designed to in duce greater production. We know of no country in the world which has ever adopted a policy of reduced price support levels in order to stimulate production. Third, the Soil Bank acreage reserve \yas recommended to the Congress as a temporary measure designed to redue'e extremely burdensome carry-over stocks of basic commodities. These tre mendous carryovers had been developed through the operation of acreage allotments and pre vious rigid price support pro grams. The -House Committee report says that they “have serious doubts that the program will reach its basic objective of re ducing production - and would question it further if'it did.” This sounds like the Committee is condeming it because they think it didn’t work, but if it is successful, they will condemn it anyway. The Department cannot agree with this position. The Soil Bank program has received bi partisan support from all those who recognize that no program or group of programs can work effectively with tremendously burdensome surpluses bearing down on the entire structure. It will be effective in reducin'* acreage and production of the designated basic crops in 1957, below what production would be in the absence of the program, rhe law makes a Soil Bank com mitment to farmers through 1959. This commitment should be carried out. In the second paragraph on page 26, the Committee Report says, “Since it is felt that com plete elimination ‘of the Soil Bank Program’ is a major policy decision which should be handl ed through regular legislative channels, the Committee has moved in the direction of a grad ual elimination, of the program by reducing the appropriation for 1958 to $6OO million and by reducing the size of the next year’s program to $5OO million.” We believe this approach to be inconsistent. ' The Department originally re- (Continued on page 15) DEPENDABLE SERVICE GARBER OIL COMPANY Phone 3-9331 Mt. Joy, Pa. Wiling CKS PULLETS Now! O ocks mpshires F, Oxford, Pa. 286 Collect )
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