562 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



26 years is that we have tried to find one remedy for the problems 

 -which cannot be remedied by one bill or one law. We have backed the 

 McNary-Hangen bill ; we have backed the debenture program, and the 

 various devices, each one of which would have fit some segment of 

 our economy very well, but we cannot apply the same remedy to 

 oranges that we can to wheat, or the same remedy to wheat that we 

 can to eggs, or the same remedy to eggs that you can to cotton or 

 beans. What we should do is to strive to get as wide a range of 

 remedies as possible and then take every reasonable means to see 

 that those remedies are applied with discretion. 



We want particularly to warn against the danger of going all-out 

 for flexible floors, or all out for fixed floors, when probably there is 

 a place in our economy for flexible floors and a place for fixed floors. 

 Under some circumstances a flexible floor is the best remedy, and in 

 certain other places the fixed floor is best, and others, where marketing 

 agreements, and others where the two-price system is best. 



We are well convinced that there is not any such thing as pink 

 pills for pale people that will meet the agricultural problem. 



If we are going to have a wide range of remedies, and we already 

 have a lot of them at the present time, the question then resolves 

 itself into how can these remedies be applied with discretion. 



We proposed a board, and in section 38 of our testimony, which I 

 understand you have before you, we have outlined our idea with 

 reference to a board. 



First I might refer to the duties of the board. We believe that a 

 board could do a lot to use the marketing system which we now have 

 through cooperatives, and through private industry in furthering 

 better marketing conditions. I think I have discussed before this 

 committee what happened in the case of peaches; how years ago the 

 tremendous surplus of peaches was disposed of in short order by 

 coo])eration among distributors. 



We believe that a board fully informed as to the facts of supplies 

 and demands could help direct and guide the distribution, particularly 

 if properly made up. There is one key to a board such as we have 

 to propose, and that is the board be made up of those who are familiar 

 with the farming industry, the producers; made up of those who are 

 familiar with processing, and those who are familiar with the problem 

 of distribution. We believe that it would be possible to develop means 

 of pushing those things in long supply and holding back on those in 

 short supply, and that we could thus take a great big part of our 

 problem right out, particularly in fruits and vegetables. We can do 

 an awful lot more than we have been doing in using the marketing 

 facilities that are now available. That would be the first prime pur- 

 pose that we would use the board for. 



Second, it would be used as a safeguard, as a consultant to the 

 Secretary in the use of whatever devices may be available, whether 

 it be the flexible floor, purchase and loan program, a fixed floor, a two- 

 price system or whatever it might be. In fact, we believe that the 

 Secretary should be given a wide range of devices to use, subject to 

 the approval of a board. In other words, we would have representa- 

 tives from all parts of production and distribution economy to advise 

 with and back up the Secretary. We think, if such a board were 

 properly appointed and selected it would not only assure the use of 

 the best knowledge and brains we can assemble but would keep it out 



