392 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



60 percent of the needed funds will be available, and I submit to you 

 that we would not have a baker's dozen of REA cooperatives serving 

 rural America. 



Mr. CooLEY. Is that not what we did? We created the agency in 

 Washington and when the farmers heard about it they called meetings 

 all over the country and they organized and obtained these loans and 

 went to work. 



Mr. Talbott. I believe there are two differences in my understand- 

 ing, Mr. Congressman, and what you have just expressed. One is 

 that it was the responsibility of the Rural Electrification given them 

 by Congress, to promote the organization of that kind of REA co- 

 operatives with low membership, not for the purpose of raising their 

 capital requirements but for the purpose of letting everyone who 

 needed their services in on a contract for service and lOU-percent loans 

 to be paid out of the operating earnings of the cooperative. 



That is my understanding. 



Mr. CooLEY. Are we not still sending out representatives of the Fed- 

 eral Government to aid farmers in the promotion of cooperatives all 

 over the country. 



Mr. Talbott. Not so far as I know. 



Mr. CooLEY. I know we were until recently, if we are not now. 

 There was a cooperative division of the Farm Credit Administration. 



Mr. Talbott. It has not been my understanding, Mr. Congressman, 

 and I have no knowledge that the people in the cooperative division 

 of the Farm Credit Administration have ever taken any initiative in 

 an area to organize a cooperative. 



Their technical people are available to give some information and 

 aid to cooperatives already organized and existing. 



Mr. CooLEY. Any time a group of farmers get together and indicate 

 they want to organize, the Government will furnish them every aid and 

 assistance and advice in connection with it. 



Mr. Talbott. Yes ; I think that is right. 



Mr. CooLEY. All right, that is all. 



Mr. Talbott. The last section, Mr. Chairman, of the proposed draft 

 of a bill establishes — and I should like to comment only very briefly 

 on it — that again, because of the relationship of operational functions, 

 that when the Commodity Credit Corporation, a food distribution 

 administration, be created with a general manager, and so forth. 



The language, I think, is clear but perhaps it does not as clearly 

 as might be needed, set forth our thinking on it. 



I should like to say that it is our judgment that reserves of storable 

 food commodities are important to both farmers and consumers but 

 that we must not — and I know that farmers in my knowledge do not — 

 expect that the utilization of storage facilities to impound reserve 

 stocks against the time of future need and also to prohibit or prevent 

 a crash in farm prices, to be used in the event of a short crop to 

 multiply farm prices to two or three or four times the parity price. 



I am sure no one would attempt to justify that sort of thing. There- 

 fore, we think that in times of a short crop the Commodity Credit 

 Corporation ought to be directed to move such amounts of the reserve 

 stocks into consumer channels as are necessary to protect the con- 

 sumers of this country. It is not to bankrupt the farmers, but in the 

 event of short supply, to see that adequate supplies are made avail- 



