GENERAL FAEM PROGRAM 415 



That principle is abandoned. I think that was a good principle. 

 The Secretary's plan abandons that. He does not try to fix the par- 

 ity and the snpport levels of the commodities on a comparable basis. 

 His formnla fixes them on the patricular price they happen to have 

 brought respectively during the past 10 years. 



Mr. Albert. AVill the gentleman yield ? 



Mr. Pace. Let me finish. So it may be that the support price on 

 wheat would be at a high level and the support price on hogs on a 

 comparable basis would be at a lower point. 



It might happen that the price of hogs during the past 10 years was 

 not as high on a comparable basis as wheat had been. Therefore, there 

 would not be, I fear, that utter abandonment on the part of the farmer, 

 the feeling that it does not make any difference and that he will shift 

 into anything we say. 



The farmer is going to say, "O. K. ; what will I get?" 



Mr. Albert. Iwould like to ask a question there, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Pace. Is yours worked on a comparable basis ? 



Mr. Talbott. Yes ; ours is based on the parity index. 



Mr. Pace. Even the parity index is a comparable basis. 



Mr. Talbott. A comparable weight of the parity units. 



Mr. Wyum. You are entirely right in what you say. Farmers do 

 want to know when they make these shifts what they will get for it, and 

 if it is not comparable, they will tell us. 



Mr. Pace. It has to be comparable in order to have this voluntary 

 shift you speak of. 



Mr. Wyum. That is correct. 



Mr. Hope. If I understood the Secretary correctly, his program is a 

 flexible program. The support price is really a minimum. He will 

 go above that, if necessary, to expand j^roduction. I do not under- 

 stand there is any question about the flexibility of the Secretary's 

 program. 



If it is necessary to make it 125 percent of the support-price level, 

 he will do so. I do not see where your thought applies there. It will 

 be whatever is necessary in order to get the volume of production that 

 is required, as I understood the Secretary. 



Mr. Pace. I rather agree with the gentleman that the Secretary does 

 ask for authority, which I think he should have, in order to get an 

 increased production to raise the support level. 



Mr. Talbott. We provided for the same thing, if you will recall. 



Mr. Pace. If he exercises that authority wisely, then there can be 

 not only a comparable return, but a shift into a better return. 



Mr. Talbott. That is for this reason, if I might illustrate. I per- 

 sonally do not like to milk cows. Just a comparable return on a 

 financial basis would not get me to milk cows. They would have to plus 

 it so far as I am concerned as an individual. 



Maybe there are other farmers who do not like to milk cows, too. 

 Maybe you have some psychological inhibitions. There are economic 

 factors that required plussing the parity price up to nearly 150 percent 

 on flax to get the production that the country needed. Maybe some 

 other of these deficit crops have to be plussed. That is the reason that 

 we provided also for that authority. 



Mr. PoAGE. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to call attention to the very 

 thing that Mr. Talbott said this morning, that we got this shift in 



