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Illinois Agricultural Association 



RECORD 



Volume 13 September, 1935 Number 9 



Fight Against Farm Program 



Grows Intense 



Real Issue Is Whether Processors and Hand lers or Farmers Shall Control Farm Policies 



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FARMERS are in for a fight. And 

 it may be a long one. There is 

 much at stake. The issue is whether 

 agriculture is to retain the AAA or 

 some similar legislation to give farmers 

 price equality. Fundamentally, it is 

 whether farmers, or processors and 

 handlers of farm products, are to dictate 

 . the future farm policies of the country. 



The 600 or more suits filed by pack- 

 ers and others to restrain collection of 

 processing taxes are only the prelimi- 

 nary skirmish. They are not so im- 

 portant in themselves. Behind the 

 smoke is an evident desire by selfish 

 but powerful interests to promote un- 

 limited production of farm products. 



Cheap food for the cities, cheap raw 

 materials for industry. This is the goal 

 of the group arrayed against, not only 

 the AAA, not only Secretary Wallace, 

 but against farmers themselves. 



For if the principle of crop adjust- 

 ment and farm price parity provided in 

 the AAA becomes permanently estab- 

 lished, apparently there is fear among 

 big middlemen and processors that 

 they will lose their power to drain the 

 wealth from the farms and amass it in 

 industrial and trading centers. Whether 

 or not that fear is well founded, its 

 existence is believed to furnish at least 

 part of the stimulus for the concerted 

 drive against the present farm program. 



Seldom has anyone seen more vicious 

 misrepresentation than has appeared 

 recently against the attempt to restore 

 a fair exchange value for farm prod- 

 ucts. For example, a recent Chicago 

 press dispatch stated that, "the Agri- 

 cultural Adjustment Act which pro- 

 vided for the destruction of six million 

 piggy sows or grown sows which would 

 have been on the market this year", is 

 one of the prime reasons for present 

 pork prices. "In addition", continues 

 the dispatch, "uncounted prospective 

 litters were destroyed." 



"Secretary of Agriculture Wallace in 

 replying to the statement attributed to 



"Chicago meat authorities" said: "I 

 am curious to know if these unnamed 

 sources are packers who are suing in 

 court for recovery of taxes already paid 

 or sequestered in court on the theory 

 that the packers paid these taxes, while 

 at the same time spreading anonymous 

 propaganda through the press to per- 

 suade consumers that the tax is borne 

 by the consumers. The interpretation 

 of the effects of the 1933 sow slaughter 

 on present pork prices as contained in 

 the Chicago dispiatch is a complete mis- 

 statement of the facts. 



"To start with the statement that 

 'six million piggy sows or grown sows' 

 were killed, is just about 3,000 per cent 

 wrong. The total number of sows pur- 

 chased by the government was not six 

 million but was by actual count 222,149 

 or about one-thirtieth of the number 

 cited in the dispatch." 



Secretary Wallace points out that 

 these sows were not destroyed — that 

 100,000,000 pounds of cured pork were 

 distributed to families on relief rolls 

 as a result of the emergency buying 

 operation. "The part of the dispatch 

 stating these sows 'would have been on 

 the market this year' is an absurdity", 

 he continues. "Farmers would not have 

 held these sows until this year under 

 any imaginable set of circumstances. 



^ 





Grading for farm-to-m a r k e t all-weathe 

 ro«d in Dawson Township, McLean Counfy, II 



The rest of the statement, 'in addition 

 uncounted prosptective litters were 

 destroyed' makes the distortion just 

 about complete. 



"So with more misinformation than 

 I believe I have ever seen packed into 

 two sentences the public is given the 

 inference — which the meat packers 

 fighting farmers' programs seem agree- 

 able to have spread — that the govern- 

 ment's 1933 pig purchase operation in 

 some way contributed to increasing the 

 present retail price of pork. Consumers 

 should be warned that a nation-wide 

 effort is being made by packers and 

 other processors to undermine farmers' 

 programs by spreading the malicious 

 and untrue propaganda of all kinds 

 about the effects and purposes of the 

 adjustment programs upon the con- 

 sumers of the country. 



"The facts are that consumers now 

 would be paying somewhat more for 

 pork, if there had been no pig pur- 

 chase program in 1933. A few simple 

 little facts, if widely understood by 

 consumers, will show them why this is 

 true. 



"These facts are: First, that the gov- 

 ernment buying of both 222,149 sows, 

 and 6,188,717 little pigs, was completed 

 before October 1, 1933 — nearly two 

 years ago. 



"Second, that the sows purchased 

 were due to farrow, or produce litters, 

 in the fall of 1933. 



"Third, that the average age at which 

 pigs are marketed is nine months. Ttas 

 means that if there had been no gov- 

 ernment buying, all of the 6,000,000 lit- 

 tle pigs bought by the government 

 would have been marketed in the win- 

 ter of 1933-34 and the spring of 1934: 

 the 222,149 sows would have been sold 

 off about the same time, most of them 

 in February and March of 1934, and 

 the pigs from their litters, bom in the 

 fall of 1933, would have gone to market 

 not later than the fall of 1934. 



"Fourth, (and this is a vital fact for 



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