GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1153 



Mr. Pace. Then you would have to pay the cost of the killing and 

 the di-essing. 



Secretary Bkannan. Yes, and all of the rest of the preparation, 

 mcludiiig getting it into a refrigerator. 



Mr. Pace. Have you any idea of the comparison of the cost per 

 pound of the live hog and the meat in the refrigerator? 



Secretary Brajsnan. The answer is about 6)2 cents. 



Mr. Pace. Then on the support level you would have about 22 

 or 23 cents per pound with the cut meat in the refrigerator. 



Secretary Brannan. Yes, the day it got in the refrigerator. 



Air. Pace. Then would that raise your figure to $220,000,000. 



Secretary Brannan. $230,000,000. 



Mr. Pace. Do you have the storage facilities to store a billion 

 pounds of pork in the United States if the regular commercial storage 

 operates normally? 



Secretary Brannan. I would assume that it could be found. 



Currently, Mr. Chairman, that is an optimistic estimate. I have 

 been thmking in terms of all the packers' facilities and ours too. 

 I do not know how much we would actually have access to for this 

 storage. 



Mr. Pace. Is there any limit on the storability of pork? 



Secretary Brannan. It begins to deteriorate at the end of 6 months 

 to a year. Some deterioration wiU set in after 6 months. 



Mr. Pace. Do you care to make any estimate of what your losses 

 "would be through deterioration? 



Secretary Brannan. In anticipation of the fact that this recent 

 run of hogs may have driven the price below the support level, we 

 have looked around the world for markets for the sale of hogs which 

 w^e thought we would have to go in and buy. I can only say to the 

 committee that we ended up with a sale to the British, but outside 

 of that the world market for hogs at any figure that we would have 

 to buy them at is a very bleak looking picture. 



Mr. Pace. I read in the paper that the British had committed them- 

 selves and now want to back out of that commitment. Do you 

 know whether that is true? 



Secretary Brannan. They are going slow on their purchases. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Secretary, what do you estimate would be the cost 

 of this program on hogs this year if the Congress approves H. R. 4485 

 to authorize the production payment method of support? 



Secretary Brannan. Again, Mr. Chairman, until we have a pretty 

 good figure of what the run of hogs will be in October it is hard to 

 estimate because it is hard to say how far do^\Ti it would go. If the 

 price does not go doAvn below the support level by more than 15 

 percent, we would not lose any more than the two hundred and 

 thirty million-odd dollars which we now anticipate we would lose 

 anyway. 



Air. Pace. What effect, Mr. Secretary — and this has been in the 

 minds of all the members of the committee — would releasing the 

 support price of pork where it could drop to the market price and 

 assuming that that was substantial, a 20- to 25-percent drop in price, 

 have on the price of competing meats such as beef, lamb, chicken, and 

 other meats? 



