1158 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. HoEVEN. If the Aiken bill was amended and made effective as 

 of September 1 , for instance, it would meet the proposal you have in 

 mind, would it not? 



Secretary Bkannan. No, sir; it would not. If we had the Aiken 

 bill in force and effect today, on the commodities we are talking about 

 today the only one we could apply payments to would be wool, because 

 wool is a storable. 



Mr. Pace. Would the gentleman yield there? For the sake of the 

 record, Mr. Secretary, you are talking about the following language 

 in the Aiken bill, are you not: 



The Commodity Credit Corporation shall not carry out any operation to support 

 the price of any nonbasic agricultural commodity other than Irish potatoes, which 

 is so perishable in nature as not to be reasonably storable without excessive loss or 

 excessive cost. 



Secretary Brannan. That is right, sir. That excludes all of these. 



Mr. Pace. And under that language as you have stated, neither 

 hogs nor cattle nor any other perishable can be supported under title 

 11 of the so-called Aiken bill other than Irish potatoes. You cannot 

 support the price of hogs or the price of cattle or any other perishable 

 commodity. 



Secretary Brannan. That is right, sir. 



Mr. Pace. That is exactly the situation. 



Secretary Brannan. There are a couple of exceptions in there which 

 are unimportant, but I think we might as well make reference to them. 

 One, if you could put these perishables into storable form. 



Mr. Pace. Then you would have the procesing cost. 



Secretary Brannan. We could use it to the extent that there are 

 any funds left in the postwar payment reservoir, and that is fast 

 dwindling. It is below $180,000,000. 



Mr. Pace. You could use some section 32 money, but you do not 

 have much of that. 



Secretary Brannan. Section 32 money does not allow you to make 

 payments directly to the farmers. Section 32 money is an acquisition 

 program for disposal at some useful source. 



Mr. Pace. That is right. 



Mr. Hope? 



Mr. Hope. Mr. Secretary, it is not quite clear to me as to why it 

 would be desirable to proceed with payments on pork and not on 

 potatoes. I understand you make the distinction that you have an 

 operating program on potatoes and you do not have it on hogs at the 

 present time, but still you have made the announcement to producers 

 of a support-price program on hogs and the Department has held 

 itself in readiness and the producers have had the right to rely on the 

 fact that there would be a price-support program. 



What is the distinction as far as your obligation to producers is 

 concerned; which, I take it, is the reason you think you should not go 

 ahead with the payment program on potatoes? 



Secretary Brannan. Mr. Hope, let us approach it from a mechan- 

 ical point of view. Today we are supporting the price of potatoes in 

 the southern part of the country by withdrawing the potatoes from 

 the market and taking them out and disposing of them in the best uses 

 we can find. The complier and noncomplier get along just about as 

 well. 



