GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 383 



I assure you it would be quite all ri^ht with us if iu the judgment 

 of this committee it is felt that we could handle the problems I have 

 foutlined by eliminating the 60 percent and tying any controls which 

 might be necessary in the future to marketing quotas which do not 

 require the 60 percent at all. Then it would be (luite all right if the 

 60-percent feature was dropped. We put it in there because we were 

 not sure that it would not be needed for the reasons I have outlined. 



Now, in section 105 I should like to point out that this enters into a 

 discussion that I should like to present in relation to the parity for- 

 mula itself. I may say that for a good many years the Farmers Union 

 has been on record as being for a paritv of income as compared to a 

 parity of price because there is some difference, let me assure you, and 

 we are j^leased with out studies thus far of the Secretary's proposal 

 where we move over to an income-support standard rather than the old 

 parity base. 



I am not in a position to give unqualified endorsement because we 

 have not yet had an opportunity in the last couple of days to make a 

 sufficient number of projects of the new income-support standard to 

 see how it might apply in the years rather immediately ahead and the 

 relationship between commodities to know whether or not we could 

 support it fully, but it seems to us that the princii)le is entirely sound. 

 "\Ye did not have the facilities to design a new formula ourselves, 

 so we took the existing, presently existing, parity formula. 



You will notice we directed the Secretary to submit to Congress 

 within 90 days following the enactment of this law a report on desira- 

 ble changes in weighting the elements of the parity indexes. I would 

 like to pause there for just a moment. 



The old 1009 to 1914 base out in our country — and I am sure over 

 most of the country — meant, among other things, horsepower for farm- 

 ing with a very great amount less mechanization and high-priced equip- 

 ment. The equivalent of the parity formula based on the 1909-14 

 basis and relationships gives to farm machinery a weighting among 

 the 160-odd commodities that go into the price cost indexes of only 

 5.6 percent. That very probably was reasonably accurate in 1909 to 

 1914, but in 1949 and 1950. in the years ahead, it is about as unrealistic 

 as anything one could imagine in much of agriculture. 



Throughout the Great Plains area — and I am sure that Congressman 

 Hope could substantiate that — in order to have an efficient operation 

 now the capital investment in machinery, the cost of gasoline and fuel 

 oil for machinery, the depreciation on the very high-])riced machinery 

 and repair parts, constitutes a great deal heavier weight in terms of 

 its relationship to a farmer's cost than 5.6 percent. 



Just a couple of weeks ago I was confronted with the necessity of 

 buying some equipment to clean up some quack grass, which is a bad 

 perennial weed in our country, on my farm. I had to have a fairh^ 

 good-sized tractor in order to do the job for all of the reasons I will 

 not take the committee's time to outline. It cost me $5,355.40 for an 

 H. D. 5 Allis-Chalmers crawler tractor large enough to do the kind 

 of work I had to have done on my farm. 



In 1945, before we disposed with the economic stabilization pro- 

 gram, that same tractor could have been purchased, if one had been 

 able to get it. for less than $3,500. 



I might say also that a year ago last fall I sold malting barley off 

 my farm for $2.57 a bushel. Last fall, I sold the same kind of barley. 



