194 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



prevent its acting as a strong encouragement to the big type operation. 

 I think it woukl do that even under your interpretation of it, although 

 it might preserve some which are now in status. 



Mr. Hope. I woukl agree 100 percent to everything you have said 

 with reference to these large-scale developments that have taken 

 place in the last 3 or 4 years where land has been plowed up that 

 never should have been plowed. I think under the application of 

 existing law that those farmers would not get very large allotments. 



If you take a 10-year average, they could only qualify during the 

 last 2 or 3 years, in all probability. They would not get very large 

 allotments. 



It is not about them that I am thinking so much, but about large 

 operators who do have a history that goes back a good deal further 

 than that and whom I believe under existing law and probably under 

 any fair law we could write that would be based on history would get 

 allotments which would enable them to produce far in excess of the 

 units that you have recommended. It seems to me that since in 

 most cases of that kind we would be dealing with crops that are likely 

 to have in effect acreage allotments and marketing quotas, that it is 

 hardly worth bothering with the detail and the controls and the red 

 tape you have to go through in administering such a program if you 

 are going to say that it does not apply when marketing quotas and 

 acreage allotments are in effect. 



Mr. PoAGE. Will the gentleman yield? 



Mr. Albert. Will the gentleman yield? 



Mr. Hope. I will yield to Air. Albert. 



Mr. Albert. Mr. Chairman, it was my impression from the Secre- 

 tary's very fine statement the other day that he was establishing a 

 new base of 1,800 units maximum. . I cannot understand the matter 

 that has been brought up by Mr. Hope now, that it will not interfere 

 with the established s^'stems of marketing quotas and allotments. I 

 thought we were getting an entirely new approach to the whole matter. 



Secretary Brannan. Mr. Albert, if we are going to change our 

 marketing quotas and acreage allotments, from the standpoint of 

 the family farm principle, I think we ought to work on the acreage 

 allotments and marketing quotas themselves. If they have a tend- 

 ency to create bigger and bigger farms, then there is the place to 

 apply the remedies, whatever they may be. 



Again I say to you that I put this thing in the statement in order 

 to bring to your attention clearly and concisely and as forcefully as 

 I could that price support operations can be so handled and so oper- 

 ated, and as a matter of fact are now being so operated, that they do 

 encourage concentration of land and the elimination of the inefficient 

 smaller producer. That was the objective of it. 



I said I was not wedded to 1,800 units or to any other group of 

 units, but I do say to you that we are not going to achieve the whole 

 job through the price support mechanism, nor do I think we ought 

 to achieve the whole job through one mechanism. 



The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, the situation you have reference to 

 is with regard to commodities which have not been under acreage 

 allotments and marketing quotas. We have not had any such 

 situation as that in the tobacco country, because we have constantly 

 been under marketing quotas. 



I can see how tremendous acreages could be planted in wheat and 

 other crops which have not been under control, but notwithstanding 



