GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 701 



Air. Pace. Let me inquire at this point: Senator, do you have any 

 questions you would hke to suggest? 



Senator Johnson. I thank you very much. This witness comes 

 from Imperial, Nebr., I know, and I was raised in the neighboring 

 town of Champion, and I took great delight in beating the Imperial 

 baseball nme. 



I have no questions, how^ever. I am intensely interested in the 

 subject matter and in the colloquy that has taken place between the 

 witness and members of this committee. It is very interesting and 

 very important to the farmers of the country. 



Mr. Pace. Your presence here, of course, indicates your very deep 

 interest in the welfare of the wheat growers and other agricultural 

 producers, and we are delighted that you came. 



Mr. Hope. In your recommendation, Mr. Hughes, you did not deal 

 with one other matter that seems to me to be a very serious defect in 

 the Aiken bill, if I understand the theory of it correctly. As I under- 

 stand the theory it is that the level of price support will result in 

 farmers making their own adjustments in the acreage that they plant to 

 various commodities. However, in order for prices to be effective, 

 they would have to be announced before the crop is planted. 



Now there is no provision in the Aiken bill for announcing the price 

 at which the crop will be supported any time in advance of the mar- 

 keting period, and a provision of the bill with reference to the announce- 

 ment of the price saj^s that cei-tain things have to be determined 

 before the price support can be announced, and that those things 

 shall be determined by the Secretary at the beginning of each mar- 

 keting year. 



Now under that provision I can see no way by which the Secretary 

 could make a statement as to the wheat price support until after the 

 crop had been put in the ground, and for that reason there is no way 

 that this announcement could affect the supply of that crop as far as 

 the planting is concerned. I was wondering if the members of your 

 committee had given any consideration to that matter? 



Mr. Hughes. I believe so. I think we realize that, but we felt 

 that it is up to us to demonstrate our ability to hold supply in line 

 with the probable demand and after we had proved that, he had done 

 so, he would then be in position to announce the support price, a 

 he would not be in position to do that ahead of time, because he would 

 have no way of knowing what percentage of the prople will be in 

 the program. 



It would be pretty hard, it seems to me, it would be pretty hard for 

 him, because he might be in position where he would have to put 

 the support price under a tremendous amount of grain, and as I 

 said, we felt that he ought to go along with the idea of holding produc- 

 tion in line with supply and demand. 



Mr. Hope. How can the farmer w^ho is going to plant a crop of 

 wheat be expected to be influenced by the support price when he 

 does not know what the support price is going to be at that time? 

 When we had the hearings on this legislation the argument that was 

 advanced was that the flexible support price was going to be a good 

 thing, because it will enable the farmer to adjust his operations to 

 supply and demand ; if he knows the support price is going to be low 

 presumably he will plant less, and if he knows it is going to be high 



91215 — 49— ser. B, pt. 4- 



