480 GENERAL FARM PROGRAIM 



If _you take the 30 years you have been suggesthig and take your 

 50 percent reduction in cotton, it has been that much in acres during 

 that time. Yet it has contributed in many areas to an improvement to 

 the agricuhure in the area. We have been certainly working and shall 

 continue to work to enhance the market to every possible extent. But 

 if it is true that we have currently a plant capable of producing more 

 cotton than we are able to make a market for, regardless of price, then 

 it is going to be to the advantage of those who have acres in cotton to 

 try to shift. Our plan at the same time is designed, especially if we 

 can have our recommendation No. 1, to provide to the producers of 

 cotton during the shift the capacity of having the 90 percent support 

 at that time. 



Mr. PoAGE. I just do not see that we get the assurance of that 90 

 j)ercent of support. I am not here trying to condemn the American 

 Farm Bureau Federation. I am a member of it. Rather than trying 

 to discredit you, I want you to give us some hope that I can carry back 

 to the people of Texas whom I would like to see members of the Amer- 

 ican Farm Bureau Federation and who will be members if they can 

 feel that their interests are being fully recognized but who certainly 

 are not going to be members very long if they feel that their ba;sic 

 crop is not being given any consideration at all. I say consideration 

 but I should possibly say not receiving treatment that is going to give 

 them the results that we all want. I do not question your sincerity in 

 desiring the results. It is a question of whetlier this procedure is 

 going to get those results. 



I think you are thinking in terms of a man who lives on high-priced 

 land in Iowa who can shift from almost any crop under the sun and 

 yoii are not thinking, as I see it, of those farmers who are tenant 

 farmers and who do not have the ability to plant a crop even next year 

 miless they can get a loan from the landlord. You are not thinking 

 (if the kind of people and the kind of agriculture that makes up that 

 Cotton Belt when you are telling them that they can shift and the}' 

 ( an go into the dairy business if they have the $50,000 capital to get 

 into it. They do not have that money and there is no way they can 

 get it. There is not even any w^ay they can plant a cotton crop next 

 year unless somebody Avill put up the money. 



You have a vastly ditferent situation through that great Cotton 

 Belt where half the farmers of America live. 



Mr. Kline. I should like to make an observation. First, with re- 

 gard to thinking these problems out I just do the best I can and that 

 is what everyone has to do. Fven though I were to apologize for 

 coming from Iowa, which I have no intention of doing, it would not 

 help the situation any. If I lived in Texas I would be in the position 

 of seeing the Texas ])icture. The position which I present here and 

 which I defend is not my own. It is the position of the American 

 Farm Bureau Federation. It has been developed by the Farm Bureau 

 Federation through all the difficult processes of achieving national 

 compromise. It has in it, I am bound to insist, a very considerable 

 appreciation of the differences between the producers of cotton on the 

 ( ne hand and the producers of feed crops on the other. It was, I can 

 assure you, made only with very hard work indeed to get the kind of 

 agreement where you can have support for this sort of position. We 

 believe sincerely that if we can have the opportunity of working with. 



