GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 647 



beginning to pile up. The surplus problem on wheat will be very 

 acute as soon as the government stops buying up our surplus and 

 shipping it abroad. Acreage allotments may become necessary even 

 with every effort to dispose of surplus wheat. If so, growers should 

 be required to meet any necessary allotments in order to receive 

 certificates. 



We believe that the certificate plan would encom-age conservation 

 farming. It would be up to the farmer to decide whether or not he 

 wants to deplete his soil by producing surplus wheat to sell at a low 

 price or make a different use of his land when it is possible. If he 

 desired to establish a grass-livestock enterprise, the certificate plan 

 would enable him to do so. 



This type of a program will be much more effective in getting farmers' 

 participation than a high loan combined with rigid acreage restriction. 

 In order to make allotments and conservation effective, it is essential 

 that we have the cooperation of as many farmers as possible. The 

 loan on a commodity has a tendency to put a floor under prices, and 

 the farmer who is not in the program gets the benefit of that price as 

 well as the farmer that is in the program. Compliance with the farm 

 program requires some radical changes in farm management, and many 

 farmers prefer to stay out of the program, providing their income will 

 compare favorably with that of the man who complies. I have heard 

 farmers say that if there were not the added income, thej^ would not 

 bother with compliance. In other words, it is only natural that in 

 deciding whether or not to comply, the farmer figm'es it from the income 

 standpoint. You cannot blame him, for he has certain obligations 

 to meet, some of them, which, if not met, would be the cause of his 

 losing what has taken years of hard work and toil, including a lot' of 

 worry, to build up. If the loan is at a point at which the noncoop- 

 erator's income is on a level with the cooperator's, it is necessary that 

 there be some means to encourage or perhaps enforce compliance. 

 Penalties have been suggested, and are absolutely necessary with a 

 high-loan program. The amount of the penalty requii'ed depends 

 upon the loan rate, and should be at least one half of it. Although 

 penalties would not be as bad as they sound, still they would build 

 up some ill will against the farm program, and believe me, we need 

 all the good will we can get. If the loan rate is not too high, and the 

 difference between that and parity made up by the income certificate, 

 that in itself would be an inducement to compliance, for the certificates 

 would be issued only to those who seeded within theu' wheat allotments. 

 This would result in more effective production control as well as in- 

 creased use of soil-conservation practices. 



The county committees and officials of the PMA are going to have a 

 lot of trouble administering wheat acreage allotments and marketing 

 quotas for 1950 under the present law. Many farmers who did not 

 cooperate in the program before the war got more money for their 

 wheat than those who did cooperate. Farmers who were requhed 

 to store "hot" wheat in 1941 and 1942 were allowed to sell it in later 

 years at considerably higher prices than they could have gotten for 

 it when the wheat was harvested. We have had a number of very 

 favorable years when prices have been supported at high levels without 

 acreage allotments. So long as we continue to spend billions of dollars 

 in furnishing food in the occupied zones a ad in financing the recovery 

 of other nations, wheat will not be in serious difficulty. As soon as 



