402 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. Talbott. Let me answer it this way : 



You will be interested to know that on that particular point we 

 had some difference of opinion in our ow^n group in arriving at con- 

 clusions. Some of us felt that, in drafting this program with the 

 support on that large a percentage of the total volume of the crop, 

 the present market would be very close to the support levels. 



The other school of thought in our ow^n group was that it would 

 be down. 



I state very frankly, as I am sure you know, that we are definitely 

 for family-type farmers and we are interested in advantaging them 

 and in disadvantaging the industrial type of agriculture. 



Some of us even felt that we should suggest going so far as to levy 

 a production tax in inverse ratio to the step-downs in the support 

 levels on volumes greater than the unita provided, and put the 

 production tax back into the Commodity Credit Corporation to help 

 finance the whole program. We were overruled in our own group on 

 that so I recognize there is an honest difference of opinion. 



Unless the program was tried I do not know how a definite, specific, 

 provable answer could be given. Some of us felt that the free market 

 would be very close to the top support price and the 60 percent would 

 not be a factor and others thought that the free market would be 

 down pretty close to the 60 percent. 



It seems to me that basically the fundamental answer to that ques- 

 tion is, what does Congress in the end propose to do about really 

 implementing a program of protecting family-type farmers in the 

 United States ? 



If we prepare to do that, then the answer is very simple. If we are 

 prepared to go clear across the board and implement it, then all we 

 have to do is use acreage allotments and marketing quotas and give 

 the family-type farmers under this unit formula a complete exemption 

 from acreage adjustments or marketing quotas and take the whole cut 

 in either quotas or acreage in the bigger operators. 



That would answer the problem that you have raised. I do not 

 know, however, what the Congress proposes to do. 



Mr. Pace. I think the entire committee is concerned about the rapid 

 increase in what I call industrial farming. 



Mr. Talbott. It is alarming in my own State of North Dakota. 



Mr. Pace. The record shows that in the last 10 years, that it has 

 practically doubled. As I have said before, I do not know of anything 

 that would be as damaging to our form of government as for our farm- 

 land to get into the hands of a few where the only job left for the 

 individual would be to work on the farm. 



I think the subject needs to be studied and treated with. It seems 

 to me that we should deal rather with the family-sized farm and cure 

 it from that side, rather than to deal with it from the big operator's 

 angle. • ' 



We have in the law now provisions with regard to minimum acreage 

 allotments. 



That is in the cotton quota law. I do not know that your suggestion 

 of totally exempting the family-sized farm would permit us to live 

 with it very long because I think even the family-sized farms would 

 plant more cotton than we would want. 



