378 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



and its byproducts and from the standpoint of the need for linseed 

 oil. The country needed it. I did not need flaxseed on my farm. 

 The country needed it. Much of the area that can grow the kind of 

 flaxseed which has the high iodine, high oil content, which is of value 

 commercially, is in the edge and out in the so-called high risk, high 

 ))lains area, where farmers, without any Government program, learned 

 a long time ago that raising flax is a very ''chancy'" crop, that perhaps 

 in much of the area three crops out of five is the best they can hope for. 

 In some parts of the area, two crops out of five is as much as they can 

 hope for. The farmer would not take a chance on a crop where he 

 just knoAvs from all down through history that he is going to have 

 two or three crop failures out of every 5 years. He is just going to 

 raise something else that is more sure in terms of production. But 

 the country needed more flaxseed. 



The gentleman on the conmiittee, Mr. Chairman, will remember that 

 beginning back in 1944 and 1045 many dilferent devices were tried. 

 As I remember it, one time we promised farmers $5 an acre for addi- 

 tional acres that would be put into flax because of the country's need 

 and we tried various schemes and devices until finally the need for 

 flaxseed became sufficiently great that the parity price of flax was 

 plussed in terms of an advance announcement of a support price up to 

 approximately 150 percent of the parity price of flax. Then on a 

 relative basis a great many farmers felt they could take a chance on 

 price that might fail entirely because of the then better relati(msliip 

 of $C) a bushel at Minneapolis as compared to a parity price of $4 a 

 bushel. 



As a result, voluntarily, democratically, a great many acres in 1947 

 and 1948 were taken out of wheat and other crops and put into flax 

 on an incentive support price basis rather than to reduce the prices 

 of the other crops to try to force farmers to go into flax and, as a 

 result, the country got all of the flax it needed. 



This year, for 1940, and announced to farmers last fall, was the 

 fact that we had all of the flax we needed. We had adequate reserve 

 stocks, we believed, and thei'efore the su]>port price foi- 1949, far in 

 advance of the planting season, was announced to be 90 percent of 

 the parity price of flax. 



Mr. Chairman, let me tell you that without any regimentation or 

 acreage controls you are going to have a lot less acres in flax at a price 

 of $3 and $6 a bushel in most of North Dakota than you had in flax 

 at a price to the farmer of $5.71 a bushel. It seems to us that that is 

 a device and we are delighted that that theory and philosophy was in- 

 corporated in the Secretary's proposal. 



Having worked com]:)letely as an independent oi-ganization and 

 through our own committees and officials and lay people, it was of 

 considerable interest to us to note that in the definition of a family- 

 type farm the Secretary of Agriculture and his staff apparently ar- 

 rived at conclusions similar to the ones we had arrived at. It may 

 be that the committee had some advance knowledge of the Secretary's 

 proposals but I can assure you that so far as we are concerned we did 

 not. 



You will iiote from section !02 that we also arrived at the conclusion 

 that if legislation was ever to be passed — and we hvwe in the past and 

 will continue to urge its favorable consideration by Congress — to give 

 preference and definitely favor family-type farmers in agriculture, 



