612 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



surpluses of most commodities. If you had something you could shift 

 into, if you would say the support price on cotton was going to be 

 60 percent of parity and you have some new crop which could be 

 grown equally well and for which there was a high market demand, 

 it would probably work. The same thing on wheat or dairying or any 

 other large area of production in agriculture. But I do not think that 

 in times like we have ahead of us, when, in all probability, we 

 will be producing up to about demand and in some cases above demand, 

 that there will be many opportunities for the Department of Agricul- 

 ture to shift production from one commodity to another by simply 

 moving the support price up or down. I do not believe you are going 

 to get much that way. Over a long period of years you might, but 

 I do not think we will get many short shifts and I think in all proba- 

 bility unles you ask farmers to make a heavy reduction in their pro- 

 duction of any particular crop that you certainly should not ask them 

 to do it on the basis of 60 percent price support for what they will be 

 allowed to produce. That is what you would be doing if you put 

 the Aiken bill in effect next year. 



You would be asking wheat producers to reduce their acreage 25 

 percent and get 60 percent of parity for what they produced, assuming 

 the Secretary followed the formula. I do not think he would neces- 

 sarily have to follow it and I do not know that he would follow it, but 

 if you assume that he is going to let it drop down to the minimum 

 that is the situation you would have. I do not think that is a very 

 desirable situation. 



I want to make my position perfectly clear on that. 



On the other hand I do not want to make the Aiken bill out to be 

 worse than it is. 



Mr. Sutton. You could not. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Hoeven. 



Mr. HoEVEN. Mr. Davis, you recommend a comparable treatment of 

 commoditi^, basic and nonbasic alike, in the price-support program. 

 Then you go on to say that you do not mean to imply that the same 

 methods of support should be used for all commodities, both storable 

 and nonstorable. You say that the method should be adapted to the 

 needs of the particular commodities being supported. Do you not 

 have to go a step further and also set up a separate formula for the 

 different types of a particular commodity ? 



For instance, we had a witness before this committee the other day 

 on the wheat proposal who showed very conclusively that the needs 

 for the wheat growers in Oregon were very different from the wheat 

 growers in Kansas. Are you not finally going to arrive, under your 

 proposal, at a set of intricate and detailed price-support formulas 

 which may go down to the various types of even a particular com- 

 modity ? 



I wonder how you are going to administer that type of program. 



Mr. Davis. I think you are perfectly right, that different commodi- 

 ties will have to be dealt with in different ways and even perhaps differ- 

 ent areas within the same commodity. We like very much the market- 

 ing-agreement method where it is practicable. In the case of perisha- 

 ble products it has worked very well. In citrus and milk it has worked 

 Erobably as well as on any commodities. We think it could probably 

 e adapted for a number of other commodities. 



