Farm Bureaii fi^tds for 

 Pope-McGUl BUI 



r\i WASHINGTON, D. C, Nov. 

 VsY 1/ 22: — The Farm Bureau Fed- 

 J eration put in some hard licks 

 here last week to get bills reported out 

 of the House and Senate Committees that 

 will give farmers more protection against 

 low prices. Progress was made in the 

 House Committee on Agriculture when 

 members voted to write into the bill they 

 are working on compulsory marketing 

 quotas for com. 



The Farm Bureau is fighting for a 

 surplus control program that will bring 

 farmers prices for their basic crops sub- 

 stantially at parity. It contends that the 

 bill should spell out in as much detail 

 as possible the things farmers want, 

 not leave too much to later decision. 

 These principles are embodied in the 

 Pope-McGill bill over in the Senate 

 which with some modification is expected 

 to be reported out of the Senate Com- 

 mittee on Agriculture within a few days. 



This bill provides for a socalled ever 

 normal granary with definite marketing 

 quotas for com and wheat when the 

 granary overflows, certain minimum loan 

 guarantees to the farmer which vary with 

 the amount of the annual surplus, and 

 parity payments the amount of which 

 will depend on the funds made available. 



It continues the soil conservation pro- 

 gram with minor amendments but in lieu 

 of class I payments, cooperators who 



keep within their soil depleting bases 

 would receive parity payments. The 

 cotton section of the bill being redrafted 

 by Senator John Bankhead of Alabama 

 would establish even more rigid produc- 

 tion control along the line of the old 

 Bankhead Act which the Supreme Court 

 threw into the scrap heap. 



President Earl Smith has been in 

 Washington nearly two weeks with 

 AFBF President Ed O'Neal and other 

 leaders, while the Committee in Congress 

 and the Department of Agriculture are 

 milling over details of the new farm 

 program. The bill originally considered 

 by the House committee fell so far 

 short of farmers needs and expectations 

 that the Farm Bureau Federation re- 

 leased a sharply critical statement through 

 President O'Neal charging that "the 

 bill fails completely to provide for any 

 effective maintenance or stability of farm 

 prices". . . . that "it fails completely to 

 safeguard producers against the price- 

 wrecking eflFect of surpluses" which the 

 program would accumulate and is 

 "wholly inadequate and impotent to 

 bring prices even within shooting dis- 

 tance of parity." 



"The Farm Bureau will fight to the 

 last ditch for reasonable and stable farm 

 prices and will oppose all weak and 

 makeshift measures that can accomplish 

 nothing but delude the farmer with false 



hopes, " the statement said. 



The real hope for an eflfective measure 

 at this time seems to rest in the Senate 

 where there is substantial agreement 

 among members of the Agricultural Com- 

 mittee that a bill with marketing quotas, 

 crop loan and parity payment schedules, 

 and soil depleting allotments is needed. 



With blackboard and chalk. President 

 Earl Smith appeared before the Senate 

 Committee Nov. 17 and for an hour and 

 23 minutes explained the loan and pay- 

 ment schedules in the Pope-McGill bill. 

 "We are standing squarely for the pro- 

 visions of this bill," he said. "We will 

 not oppose amendments to make it more 

 workable but we will not compromise 

 the parity principles." 



Thinking farmers are insisting that in 

 retum for their efforts in producing and 

 storing crop surpluses to protect the con- 

 sumer 'against periodic famine, short 

 crops, and high prices, the nation should 

 do no less than assure farmers near 

 parity prices and protection against the 

 otherwise price wrecking influences of 

 the ever normal granary. 



The Farm Bureau believes that Sched- 

 ule A in the Pope-McGill bill which 

 fixes the loan rate at a definite percentage 

 of the parity price should be retained. 

 This loan rate goes down as the crop 

 surplus increases. For example, when the 

 (Continuii on page i, column 3) 



AS THE 22nd ANNUAL lAA CONVENTION OPENED IN THE CIVIC AUDITORIUM. CHICAGO. LAST YEAB 

 On Ih* stag* or* directors. •toH mambars. and •mplo7««a of th« lAA and Aa«ociot*d Companies. This year's msoting will b* 

 hold in tho big now Armerr at Springfiald, Ion. 26, 27, 28 whoro a crowd of SJOOO or mora is oxpoctod. 





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