520 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. Shaw. We can do that to a limited degree but our feed and fiber 

 crops to products are limited too so we cannot get too far with that 

 because of the high-priced land and other things. 



Mr. AxDRESEN, I know the tobacco land is $500 an acre so a new- 

 comer cannot come in and plant tobacco. He must buy some existing 

 tobacco land. 



Mr. Shaw. You are wrong about that ; he can. Thei-e is a new- 

 grower provision in the law. 



Mr. Andrp:sex. But he will have to suffer a penalty for two or three 

 years. 



Mr. Shaw. He will fare better then than the tobacco growers usually 

 have. 



Mr. Andresex. I think you are mistaken about your State. We have 

 been told repeatedly by the chairman and many witnesses that North 

 Carolina was the greatest State in the Union and had the greatest 

 diversity of production. 



Mr. Shaw. I agree and I observed that fact and said we were right 

 in the middle of every problem in the Nation except citrus fruits. 



Mr. Andresen. I am not trying to minimize the greatness of your 

 State. 



Mr. CooLET. You will never find any North Carolinian who will do 

 that. May I ask a question ? 



Mr. Andresen. Go ahead. 



Mr. Coolet. Mr. Shaw, what is your honest opinion with regard 

 to what the situation would have been in our section of the country 

 last year if we had not had on the books a support program for 

 tobacco and cotton ? 



Mr. Shaw. It would have been acute from an agricultural point of 

 view. I have no idea how low tobacco might have sold. 



Mr. CooLEY. Do you not think it would have meant bankruptcy for 

 the whole area? 



Mr. Shaw. It would have bankrupted the agricultural economy for 

 the whole State. I think we need to be realistic about the problem 

 of agriculture and a program. The farmers want a program which 

 is as near what the farm people want as we can get. 



Secondly, they want one that is sound enough to defend before 

 businessmen. 



They are diametrically against incentive payments, all of them that 

 I know, on any commodity and we do not think too much of the Sec- 

 retary's proposal about how he arrived at his support principles based 

 on his principles of purchasing power. 



We think the present parity formula is much more defensible and 

 easier to understand and one that you can depend on to gear your agri- 

 cultural economy to the rest of the economy in a defensible manner. 



Since it does not improve the farmer's lot to a great extent, we won- 

 der why it is necessary to lay down a principle that can be made to 

 work with certain adjustments and with the leeway the Secretary 

 already has and adopt one that we know nothing about where we 

 must start in to educate the people again. Of course we would doubt 

 the wisdom of a program that would entail the expense of Government 

 funds to the tune of what it looks like his proposal might suggest. 



