GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 409 



They all say "No, Carl, you cut your cotton acreage down to 60 or 

 75 acres. Then if you grow six-tenths of a normal crop we will see 

 that you get a fair price for that six-tenths." 



That is what we tell the cotton man under any of these programs. 

 When it comes to somebody else who is producing a perishable com- 

 modity, you say, "You go out and continue to produce all you have 

 ever produced. You keep all your cows. You keep all your hogs. 

 You produce all you have ever produced. Of course, the market is 

 going to go down because you are going to produce more than the 

 market will take at a proper price, but the Government will pay you 

 the difference." 



The Government pays that man the difference on 100 percent of his 

 normal production. To Mr. Albert, who is growing cotton, or IVIr. 

 Hope, who is growing wheat, we say, "Before we will give j^ou a fair 

 price for your commodity, you cut oil a third or a fourth of your pro- 

 ductioiT and we will pay you a fair price. AVe will see that you get 

 a fair price on the remainder." 



Do we not have a double standard in your program and in the sec- 

 retary's program that works decidedly to the advantage of the man 

 who creates surpluses and restricts the man who does not create 

 surpluses ? 



Mr. Talbott. My thinking on that is that we should be the last ones 

 to propose, as I am sure our stand on various pieces of farm legisla- 

 tion back over the years has shown ; it continued unwise utilization of 

 the land resources in terms of production of totally unneeded and un- 

 wanted crops. 



We believe the proposal for the unit system gives the opportunity, 

 subject to the other things that I mentioned in reply to Congressman 

 Albert's question earlier this afternoon, for those shifts within agri- 

 culture to balance production. 



It seems to me one of the key things in this matter, from our view- 

 point, based on all of the information we can get and which we believe 

 to be accurate, is that our agricultural plant is not too big. 



If we can get the proper adjustments within agriculture, our total 

 volume of production, one with another, will not be larger than can be 

 fully utilized. 



We have in terms of dietary needs and consumer needs and foreign 

 markets and what we conceive to be needed reserves of storable com- 

 modities, a tremendous and growing volume of need against, in effect, 

 a decreasing farm plant at the present time in terms of draining out 

 of the soil more fertility and plant life than we have been putting 

 back into it over the years. 



I am not one, and certainly the Farmers Union is not one to say that 

 Tom Campbell or anyone else should go on regardless of the public 

 welfare or any thing else and raise 90,000 acres of wheat each year 

 merely because he may be able to do it at 60 percent of parity or some 

 other alleged figure. 



It seems to us that with the provisions in the proposed legislation for 

 the imposition of acreage allotments or marketing quotas the Tom 

 Campbells in agriculture can be adequately handled when we get to 

 the point where we have all of the reserves that the Congress decides 

 we should carry on a crop. 



