476 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



When we sell a commodity like a grain for direct consumption — 

 about 1214 percent of corn goes into consumption — the farmer gets a 

 very small percentage of the net which the consumer pays for the 

 commodity. But when we sell a higher quality food which is more 

 processed — and in this instance, because corn is a feed, you think of 

 dairy products or of meats particularly — we get from 50 percent up 

 of the consumer's dollar. The consumer has a relatively stable amount 

 which goes into the food budget. Again, the balance which is taken 

 in that area, in which there are, after all, about 142,000,000 acres in 

 feed grains alone, has an effect on all other commodities which com- 

 pete for the land. If you can raise some feed grain and feed it to 

 livestock and have an outlet for the beef, then you are not tempted to 

 plant it to some other commodity if the income on the other commodity 

 is lower. 



That is where you come in on a lot of the minor commodities, dozens 

 and dozens and dozens of them. 



Mr. PoAGE. I do not want to stop you there, but I realize time is 

 passing very rapidly and I think everybody is in agreement that both 

 the Brannan bill and the Aiken bill attempted to give the producers of 

 livestock a relatively larger share of farm income than they liave 

 enjoyed in the past. They both pointed up the support prices for live- 

 stock and livestock products as compared with the support prices on 

 the storable commodities. They both recognized the truth of all that 

 you are saying there. When we get beyond that point, the Brannan 

 bill did not attempt, in the event that there was too much cotton 

 grown in this country, to force every man out of cotton by completely 

 breaking him and making it impossible for him to get the credit to 

 plant a crop. 



As I understand the Aiken bill, that is the way it proposes to effect 

 these shifts of production. When tliere is too much of a commodity, 

 whether it be livestock or anything else — ^but they both presumed 

 there would not be too much livestock — the way to get these people 

 out of that commodity, such as cotton, is to get the price so low that 

 nobody can grow a crop next year. Is that not the philosophy of the 

 Aiken bill? 



Mr. Kline. I want i)articularly and very carefully to answer that 

 question because it was on that point that our board of directors spent 

 a very long time. I have already pointed out that with the act as 

 it is and with an acreage allotment and marketing quota program 

 which worked, we could, under the law now on the books the first of 

 next August, have a 90-percent loan on cotton. 



Mr. PoAGE. Mr. Kline, I want to go into that with you because I 

 cannot agree with your assumption. I do not understand that. I 

 may not understand it correctly but I heard you make the statement 

 that we could have 90 percent of parity on cotton. However, that 

 is assuming that we will not have any extensive surplus of cotton next 

 August. Let us look at the facts. We have every reasonable pros- 

 pect of having a tremendous surplus of cotton next August. I do 

 not think that a man familiar with cotton growing in the United 

 States does not assume that we will have not only a substantial but a . 

 crushing surplus of cotton next August. You assume that if we do 

 not have any surplus of cotton, if we have only 90 percent of what we 

 need, then we can get a support price of 90 percent, which is just what 



