GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 365 



Shameful and untruthful as much of the NTEA propaganda is, I am convinced 

 that NTEA is a farm co-op asset and not a liability. The NTEA has stirred up 

 farmers to become better informed about their co-ops — they are working to- 

 gether better in the defense of their own organizations, and they are showing 

 the signs of health and vitality that unfair opposition always generates. As 

 far as I can find, NTEA has not changed its tune except to quit calling (in print) 

 co-ops "communistic." That's something, anyway. 



The second piece of legislation which has a better chance of passage this time 

 is a bill to make it possible for farmers through their co-ops to acquire the capital 

 stock and gradually take control of the district and central banks for coopera- 

 tives of the Farm Credit Administration. 



These banks were capitalized and financed with around $200,000,000 in 1933 

 with part of the unspent funds from the old Federal Farm Board. The capital 

 is intact, and about $40,000,000 has been earned on co-op business. The banks 

 have helped farm co-ops meet their credit needs, but on a more modest scale 

 than RFC for private business generally. The dollar has declined in value, 

 and credit needs of the co-ops are increasing. 



Therefore, a defect of the original law must be corrected so farm co-ops can 

 increase the bank's capitalization, acquire control, and make their institutions 

 more useful, in keeping with the objectives of providing farmers with an ade- 

 quate credit system which they own. 



The legislation to do this is modeled after legislation under which bankers are 

 acquiring the stock of one of their Government institutions, the very useful 

 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which insures private bank deposits. 



The legislation which will get the most time and the most headlines, however, 

 is in the field of permanent farm legislation involving price supports, the per- 

 manent CCC charter, and an adequate farm, terminal, and subterminal storage 

 program, and associated programs of soil conservation and USDA reorgnizatiou. 



The biggest center of controversy will be the Aiken-Hope Act. This was the 

 measure which passed in the last hours of the last session. It had two parts to it. 



The first part has no serious opposition. It extended 90 percent price sup- 

 ports to the basic commodities — wheat, corn, cotton, tobacco, rice, and peanuts— 

 from December 31, 1948, to December 31, 1949. It also extended supports to the 

 so-called Steagall commodities — those where the Secretary of Agriculture asked 

 for big wartime and postwar increases in production to feed our armed forces, 

 our allies, and the hungry and starving of the postwar world. 



The second part of tlie act wil provide the argument. This is the so-called 

 permanent farm act which changes or modernizes the parity formula, sets 

 up a system of flexible support prices, and which contemplates use of acreage 

 allocations and marketing quotas. 



This part of the act is complicated — so complicated that it is safe, without 

 falling into the error of Gallup, Roper, et al., to say this : 



(a) Many Members of Congress do not know what the act means in terms 

 of income to farmers — which the act will drastically reduce. 



( &) Less than one-half of 1 percent of the 4 to 5 million farmers affected by the 

 act knows what it means in terms of income from their farms in the years 

 ahead. 



Just what does it do? I think the best way to get at the white meat is to take 

 a specific case, sharpen our pencils, and dig out the figures of Income in prospect 

 j^ear by year ahead. 



We will take the case of John X. Doe, a wheat farmer. He has 500 

 acres of land. He grows 300 acres of wheat annually, somewhere in the Great 

 Plains. His average yield, to help make the case simple, we will make constant 

 at the national average for some years past — 15 bushels to the acre. His freight 

 and handling charges to get his wheat into and through his co-op elevator and 

 over the rails to his terminal co-op are 20 cents a bushel, and his loan price 

 locally works out to be exactly 20 cents below the national average loan value, 

 which is the loan value at his terminal. 



John X. Doe is like thousands of wheat farmers — his operation is perhaps 

 a little larger than most. Actually, like the ave -age farmer, he runs great 

 weather risks. He has no cash income except from wheat sales, a common 

 situation. Like most of his neighbors, he has a family-sized farm for his low- 

 rainfall area. He has a wife and three children, and one of his main jobs in 

 life is to earn for them, year in and out, a decent living; to pay his taxes, his 

 bills, and keep his land in shai)e for posterity. He loves his land, but never- 

 theless he can't raise corn, tobacco, cotton, or peanuts on it. Nature intended 

 it for wheat, and his responsibility in the national picture is to grow the stuff 

 from which bread is produced. 



