890 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



ing costs of production. Small inefficient units do not do it. The 

 coal-mining industry is a good illustration. 



Seventh, Government financing of surplus of appropriate farm 

 products to underdeveloped countries as a gift, a form of farm lend 

 lease, for at least several years. 



I realize, and every student does, we can increase our production 

 of farm products enormously in America, and one of the most hopeful, 

 and I think most beneficial, agencies of the United Nations has been 

 the Farm and Agricultural Organization. Sir William Boyd and 

 others. Dr. Dodd in charge now, have shown the world's need for 

 food and fiber. I would call that one of the greatest peace moves, 

 linking it with the national wheat agreement, two of the greatest 

 peace moves made in the last few years. 



Wlicn I suggest this, it is not to give away surpluses we haven't 

 got, but we have surplus of some things and what I stated is "appro- 

 priate." You can't do it on all farm products. Farmers could pro- 

 duce more efficiently and sell at a lower price if they can find a market 

 for their maximum production. I think every real farmer objected 

 seriously, as some of your witnesses today have intimated, to the 

 idea of restricting production in a world which never has produced 

 enough to meet human needs. And so we put that suggestion in. 



I am aware that you may not include all of our suggestions in the 

 bill. I saw in the papers that the Brannan plan has been put into 

 the form of a bill. I don't know whether it has been introduced yet 

 or not, but we make these suggestiors, and it has been very difficult 

 to speak to a bill that has not yet been born, in other words, where 

 you have a scheme, but it is not in bill form. I tried to read a great 

 deal about Secretary Brannan 's suggestion, and in his four-page 

 interview on April 29, United States News, he was asked this question 

 by the interviewers, members of the United States News and World 

 Report staff: 



What happened to the processor under this plan. 



Answer by Secretary Brannan : 



The processor for the most part isn't hurt. 



Now, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I don't mean 

 to criticize all of the processors and distributors of farm products, 

 but I think the profits they have made relative to the profits in other 

 Imes have been very large. Also some of them are highly efficient. 

 Others are not at all efficient, and that is the reason that we suggest 

 as part of the program for farmers — from the consumers' standpoint, 

 admittedly — that you have this Government marketing corporation. 

 As you know, within 6 weeks after the war started, the Government 

 of Great Britain — and mind, it was a Conservative government, and 

 not the Labor Party in control at that time — made all processors and 

 distributors of farm products agencies of the Government with profits 

 limited and practices pretty well controlled. They have operated 

 very efficiently. It was, I think, again Mr. Goss who said in one of 

 his addresses of the National Master to the National Grange meeting 

 at the convention that an efficient system of marketing farm products 

 would settle a good many farm problems. It certainly is necessary 

 to get a more efficient system. 



I thank you and the committee for the courtesy you have extended 

 me. I think I am the only representative of the exclusively consumer 



