340 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



the Federal Treasury. I feel that when this situation is changed 

 you are striking at that objective which you emphasized the first day. 



Secretary Brannan. Mr. Cotton, if I did I certainly did not state 

 myself well. Any limitation on the application of price supports was 

 not intended in any way, shape, or form to permit part of the com- 

 modity to go into the market at below the support levels. It was 

 designed to encourage the bigger farmer to sell part of his farm off 

 to another person. 



Mr. Cotton. I thank you, but Utopia is fast disappearing. 



Secretary Brannan. I am sorry, sir; but I want to be quite frank 

 with you about that. 



The Chairman. Will Mr. Granger yield to Mr. Hope? 



Mr. Granger. I will yield. 



Mr. Hope. Mr. Secretary, I am not sure that I have reached any 

 definite conclusions on this question of limitation of the benefit pay- 

 ments yet, but I am of the same opinion as Mr. Granger. I cannot 

 see how under a program of reducing large farm operations and 

 encouraging and benefiting the family-sized farm, there is any practical 

 or logical reason why the 1,800 units should not be applied to com- 

 modities that are operating under acreage allotments for marketing 

 quotas. To get to the practical end of it, if you are going to apply 

 marketing quotas as you first put acreage allotments into effect, is 

 there any reason why we could not pass a law or you could not carry 

 out a regulation adopted in pursuance to some law under which you 

 would not give any farm.er acreage allotments in excess of a sufficient 

 am.ount to produce 1,800 units? 



If you did that, is there any reason why that in any way would 

 interfere with the production of the needed quantity as determined 

 by the Department of that particular commodity? 



Secretary Brannan. No, I know of no reason why you could not 

 give a producer of a specific commodity a limitation. As a matter 

 of fact, the authority now exists to place a limitation on his production 

 and the route is acreage limitations or m.arketing quotas. Under the 

 existing law you ask him to vote on it. 



The Chairman. Will you yield, Mr. Secretary? That limitation 

 has to be unifoi-m, too. What we are talking about is changing the 

 uniformity of the present law and applying one yardstick to the little 

 fellow and another one to the big man. 



If you put the 1,800-unit program in effect on a wheat grower or a 

 cotton grower and you let that be known, of course all of the influen- 

 tial big growers will use their influence to defeat the referendum and 

 the quotas. In the event quotas were imposed, they would still go 

 ahead and perhaps produce an abundance. 



Mr. Hope. The big grower has one vote and the little grower has 

 one vote. 



The Chairman. The big grower has a lot of influence over the little 

 grower. 



Mr. Hope. I have never seen the time when we did not have a lot 

 more little growers than big growers. 



It is possible that unless you apply some sort of limitation under 

 this kind of program you might sooner or later have as many big 

 growers as you do little growers, because the experience under these 

 programs has been that the big growers absorb the little growers. 

 Unless you apply the limitations to those commodities which will be 



