424 GEXERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr, Talbott, Maybe we should have a postalization of railroad 

 freight rates. I am not prepared to propose that. 



Mr. Andresen. My father used to have a farm in North Dakota. 

 It seemed about half of his money went for the freight. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Hope. 



Mr. Hope. I want to compliment you upon your statement. I 

 think it was a very fine presentation and one of the best I have ever 

 heard, including the statements of all of the representatives of the 

 Parmers Union. I congratulate you on your presentation. 



But I was perturbed by the assumption that it would be easy to 

 make these shifts that we are talking about. Of course, it was easy 

 during the war to make shifts wlien we needed almost everything. 

 But right iiOAV. if you hjid a iirogiam alonjr this line that you vranted 

 to depend upon voluntary shifts to bring it about, just where would 

 you shift? We are assuming that we are going to have to cut down 

 the acreage of wheat. Where would you shift? 



Mr. Talbott. ^Ir. Hope, going back to one of the statements I 

 made this morning, to the best of my knowledge and belief our total 

 agricultural plant is not too large. I get that from the census report 

 and economics and BAE and all of the other sources that I have been 

 able to check. It would not be too large if we had adequate 

 adjustment. 



That obviously means that if we have unusable surpluses of some 

 crops, if the first statement is true, then we must have deficit produc- 

 tion or needs that are unsatisfied for many other crops. 



I believe Congressman Andresen just mentioned milk. It was 

 assumed that we need 150 or 160 billion pounds of milk. I do not 

 think milk has received comparable treatment from such information 

 as our people in the dairy section of Wisconsin and Minnesota and 

 Iowa give us. It apparently has not had comparable treatment under 

 the old parity formula. Perhaps that can be changed with a com- 

 plete review and weighting of cost factors for the Federal deficit areas 

 and so forth. It seems to me, from all the information we have, there 

 are so many deficit crops that could be produced in much of the area 

 which is producing some of the surplus crops that it is possible to get 

 the shifts. 



I hope I did not leave the impression that our group thought it was 

 just a "heebee-jeebee"' matter, that it was a very easy or quick thing 

 to make the shifts. We feel that, if comparable treatment is given 

 to all commodities, then we will have the basis and that many shifts 

 can be made quickly. Shifts can be made from surplus to deficit 

 cereal grains quickly and certainly on a voluntary basis if there is 

 a comparable treatment of those crops. A shift into greater produc- 

 tion of dairy products obvious]}- would take at least 7 or 10 years. 



We have deficits in many of the protective foods. I would think 

 that many areas raising surplus crops could, taking into consideration 

 all of the factors and with comparable treatment of all commodities, 

 shift into other crops. It might not be complete, because you may 

 have the factors of a lack of know-how or credit. Maybe they will 

 have to junk their machinery if they are going to shift from a one- 

 crop system into a multiple-crop system. Those things have to be 

 considered. On some of them it is going to take acreage allotments 

 or marketing quotas for a period of years during that transition 

 period. 



