318 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



pounds and bushels was more than our exports. Our markets will 

 attract these things from all over the world. I know of no better 

 way to demonstrate that than by stating that Mr. Flannagan, when 

 he was chairman, brought that out one time, that at any time the 

 support price was higher than the world price plus the duty we were 

 headed for trouble. Last year we imported 419,000 head of cattle 

 from Canada. We imported between two and three times as many 

 dollars' worth of processed beef as we ever did before — it is estimated 

 an import of at least a million head on a live cattle basis. 



We imported the greatest amount of canned or processed beef that 

 we had ever imported. We had been big exporters in 1946 as a result 

 of world policy and the Government wanted to carry out this program, 

 so I am not criticizing that. 



I noticed in the paper last night that the Argentine does not want 

 to have any meat contracts with Great Britain. They want to send 

 more of their beef to the United States. 



Secretary Brannan. For dollars. 



Mr. Murray. Certainly. If we have no formula or set-up where 

 the country will have some way of controlling that process, we will not 

 only embarrass the Secretary of Agriculture but the whole support 

 program and the United States Treasury as well. 



I think that time is liable to come rather fast wiien it does come. 

 Not only should we control domestic production but we should also 

 control imports. That is one reason I was always interested in the 

 FAG. The philosophy of the FAG was and is to take these surpluses 

 and not dump them into countries that do not need them but funnel 

 them to places in the world that are in need of them. 



Is that not one of the big objectives of the Food and Agriculture 

 Organization? 



Secretary Brannan. I suppose so. I always had the impression 

 that the greater emphasis was on assisting them in producing for 

 themselves. 



Mr. Murray. I realize that is a part of it but the international 

 wheat agreement, which is a step in that direction, instead of making a 

 cutthroat competition of it, should be a step in the right direction. 



They have an orderly set-up comparable to what we have had in 

 the sugar business. Is that not right? 



Secretary Brannan. Yes. The intangible but very important and 

 direct benefit of the wheat agreement over and above the outlet for a 

 specific number of bushels of wheat to the United States lies in the 

 fact that the assurance to the importing countries that they can buy 

 wheat at a prenegotiated price which they would not have signed up 

 for if they had not thought it was somewhere in the area of reasonable 

 relief to them from the pressure of trying to encourage uneconomic 

 production of wheat within their own boundries. 



It thereby helps maintain for us a market in those countries. After 

 the First World War a number of the countries of western Europe 

 decided that they were going to get read}^ for the next war by making 

 themselves self-sufficient in wheat. 



Gne of the benefits of the wheat agreement to us is that we may be 

 able to dissuade them from that type of thing. 



Mr. Murray. An example would be putting $1 or more import 

 duty on the wheat, like Mussolini did, so Italy could be self-sufficient 

 in case of war. 



