GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 45 



What do you think would be the reaction of the noncommercial 

 area corn producers if they were put under exactly the same acreage 

 reductions but still not enjoy the same price support? If they are to 

 suffer as much as the commercial corn producer areas, how would 

 they react to not having the same- benefits? 



Secretary Branxax. Mr. Chairman, I suppose the people outside 

 the commercial corn-producing area consider com a very essential 

 part of their farming operations. From their point of view, it is 

 probably as important to them as any of their other crops. 



On the other hand, from the standpoint of the national pattern 

 of production of corn, their production is not as higlily essential to 

 the total economy as in the concentrated corn-hog areas and tlie so- 

 called commercial corn-producing area. 



I suspect they would not be too easy to reconcile, but there is in 

 the whole operation of these programs a cut-off place, beyond which 

 the determination must be made not to go, in the interest of the 

 efficient administration of the programs and the amount of benefits 

 resulting from the efforts expended. I assume that is one of the things 

 that the committee is always searching for. It certainly is one of the 

 things we in the Department are always searching for. 



Mr. Pace. Let us see if I understand you clearly, Mr. Secretary: 

 The corn producers outside of the commercial area would have no 

 voice in determining whether or not quotas were put into effect. 



Secretary Branxax. That is right. • 



Mr. Pace. The referendum would be confined to the commercial 

 area. Therefore, fu'st, they would have no voice in determining 

 whether or not marketing quotas would be in effect in the commercial 

 area, the producers in the commercial area alone would determine 

 that, and then they would enjoy only three-fourths of their support, 

 although we might say they suft'er exactly the same cut in acreage. 

 I can understand your suggestion, but do you see the practical diffi- 

 culties of administration? 



Secretary Brannan. I do, Mr. Chairman, but what I was trying to 

 say a moment ago was this: The farmers in the Corn Belt have noth- 

 ing to say about the acreage allotments, marketing quotas, or an}- 

 thing else with respect to the cotton because they raise no cotton. So 

 the question is where between the fellow who raises no corn and the 

 fellow who raises the commercial quantity of corn we must find a cut- 

 off place and put the fellow who raises a little corn about in the same 

 category as the fellow who raises no corn. It is an administrative 

 problem. Air. Chahman, on the one hand, and a question of broad 

 equity, on the other hand, to which you are primarilj'^ addressing 

 yourself. 



Mr. Pace. Let me see if I understand this. While you did not 

 recommend it, you gave the committee the suggestion that we should 

 probably consider when you have marketing quotas aft'ecting corn in 

 the commercial area, that the authority should be given to the Secre- 

 tary of Agi'iculture to have limitations on the production of all the 

 competing grains as well. 



Secretary Braxxax. That would be one approach to prevent an 

 overstocking of the national supplies of feed grains. If we encourage 

 people to shift out of corn by marketing quotas, or acreage allotments, 

 they are going into some other commodity. If they go into a directly 



91215 — 49— pt. 1 4 



