GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1147 



Secretary Brannan. In the world market? 



Mr. Murray. We will say the price in the United States goes 

 down to 20 cents. You believe that it will lower the imports of 

 wool, do you not, and you believe that it will increase the number 

 of sheep in the United States over a period of years? 



Secretary Brannan. I do not know that that necessarily follows 

 unless you assume no changes whatsoever in the supply and demand 

 domestically for the types of wool that the people need and want. 

 It is my understanding that in the clothes that we buy are qualities, 

 types, and styles of wool which we do not produce domestically and 

 perhaps which we have never been geared up to produce domestically. 



Mr. Murray. That is all, Mr. Secretary. 



Mr. Pace. In the interest of time I am going to have to ask that 

 we do not exhaust other alternative plans. If we did, we would be 

 here a month. 



Hoping that it will take only a few minutes, I ^\^ll ask the Secretary 

 next about Irish potatoes. Then we will take up hogs. 



Mr. Secretary, what were your losses on the Irish potato program 

 for the 1947 Irish potato crop? 



Secretary Brannan. May I give you the losses for 2 or 3 years 

 in a row? 



Mr. Pace. For the 1947 crop and for the 1948 crop, at least. 



Mr. WooLLEY. For the 1947 fiscal vear it was $42,582,000. 



Mr. Pace. For the 1948 fiscal year? 



Mr. WooLLEY. These are just Commodity Credit Corporation 

 losses I am giving you here. For the 1948 fiscal year it was 

 $44,000,000. 



Mr. Pace. And 1949? 



Mr. WooLEY. I have onlv an estimated figure here, Mr. Chairman. 

 The estimated figure for 1949 is $220,000,000. 



Mr. Pace. What about the section 32 money for the 1947 and 

 1948 fiscal years? Add them all up and I will pass on to another 

 question. 



Mr. Secretary, it is well known that the support price on the 

 potatoes for the 1949 crop has been reduced to 60 percent of parity. 

 Under the program now set up what do you anticipate the loss will 

 be on the 1949 potato crop? 



Secretary Brannan. It is a little early for us to say, Mr. Chairman, 

 but I can say that apparently the volume of commodity coming on 

 the market is only 2 or 3 percent less than came on the market last 

 year. 



Air. Pace. In other words, there has been only a very slight reduc- 

 tion in the production? 



Secretary Brannan. Yes, sir; in the volume of production. 



Mr. Pace. What do you estimate would be the cost of supporting 

 the potato crop under the production-payment plan? 



Secretary Brannan. If in the support of potatoes by the produc- 

 tion-payment plan, we would require the people to stay with their 

 allotments or goals, the cost of which would be somewhere near the 

 supply which the American consuming public can reasonably absorb 

 at any price or under any circumstances, we can reduce the cost to a 

 nominal figure of somewhere in the neighborhood of ten to fifteen 

 million dollars after being in operation two or three years. That is 

 nominal compared with what we have lost in the past. 



