396 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



It may not be so recognized but that really implies family -type 

 farms. 



P"or, as I understand the history of farm legislation, it was really 

 the pressure of families — people working on the farms and dependent 

 on farm income for a living — that forced the issues that have resulted 

 in support prices and in fact the whole agricultural program. 



There are many forces today who try to avoid facing the issue on 

 that basis. But our farm organization has consistently battled to 

 make family-type agriculture the dominant force and keystone in our 

 Nation's farm policy. 



That means farms in sound economic units, well enough financed to 

 be mechanized, stocked, and equipped so they can be operated effi- 

 ciently and earn enough income so that families who are living on the 

 farm and doing the work on the farm can enjoy the same standard of 

 living that people living off the farm in the cities and towns have. 



Decent American standard of living includes modern housing, elec- 

 tricity, telephones, benefits of technology, good all-weather roads and 

 highways, complete and adequate health care and facilities, as good 

 schools and opportunity for education for our farm children as though 

 they lived in the cities, good community facilities including church, 

 broad recreation opportunities including cultural development. 



And as part of this American standard of living, not only that these 

 facilities and opportunities are available, but that there be time and 

 leisure to partake of them, enjoy them, use them. 



Some of these things cannot be secured with income alone. They 

 can only be secured through cooperation in various forms. Some of 

 it only "through cooperatives — electricity, REA co-ops, telephones for 

 many farmers will only be secured the same way — through farmer 

 cooperatives, probably financed by the REA. 



Schools, roads, recreation, hospitals, health clinics-^these too will 

 come only through cooperation, much of it Government cooperation — 

 people using their Government to serve their needs. That is how we 

 got rural free delivery, REA, roads, schools, many of the hospitals 

 that we do have. 



A broad program that brings all of these things to farm people is 

 our conception of the farm program. It includes aiding in financing 

 of family farms in all its needs. It includes encouraging coopera- 

 tives to provide an efficient, effective marketing and distribution sys- 

 tem, at least enough co-ops to serve as a yardstick and measure the 

 extent to which the competitive principle is operating in private enter- 

 prise. 



But specifically, it is my understanding this hearing is concerned 

 with the phases of the farm program that deal with the income and 

 prices that the farmer gets for the products he produces on the farm. 

 It is this income that will determine whether he can avail himself of 

 those things that go with a decent living that income can buy. 



We face a crisis. Farmers fear for the future. ,1 might as well 

 bluntly tell you they fear the effect of the present farm program, the 

 1948 Agricultural Act. They do not want 60 percent of parity, nor 72 

 percent or 50 percent. We had those kinds of prices following the 

 First World War. 



We need a farm program that will prevent agriculture from being 

 the fall guy and shock absorber for inflation that it was following 



