1164 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Secretary Brannan. Well, it might or it might not. We are not 

 advocating either killing the hogs or 



Mr. AXDRESEN. No. 



Secretary Brannan. We are advocatmg trying to get the food into 

 the hands of the consumers. 



Mr. Andresen. But I cannot quite agree with you that it would be 

 a total loss, because it seems to me, with the Government gomg into 

 the market and buying the equivalent of 1,000,000,000 pounds of pork, 

 the tendency would be — and I think it has been shown in the past on 

 other commodities — that the price would go up above the support 

 price and you could dispose of some pork which you had acquired 

 during the shorter season when not so many hogs are marketed. 



Secretary Brannan. That, of course, is always a possibility, but the 

 minute we start to move any of the meat back into the market place, 

 the probable result would be to drive the price right back down below 

 the support level, and we would be back in business again buying. 



Mr. Pace. The fact about it is as soon as you put that much meat in 

 storage and had it there available to be released it is going to have a 

 depressing effect on the market. 



Secretary Brannan. Its very existence may well have that kind of 

 effect. I have not said it was a total loss, but I said it potentially 

 could be. You might find offshore purchasers or you might find off- 

 shore uses for it through our international objectives or some such 

 thing as that; but it is not like cotton, is not like wheat, or is not like 

 some of the other commodities which can be stored for several years 

 during which time you have the opportunity to look for disposable 

 uses, to get good disposition. 



Mr. Andresen. Do not you think, Mr. Secretary, if you have 

 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 bales of cotton under either Government 

 ownership or Goverimient loan, that will have the same effect on the 

 market as the chairman has indicated pork would have on the market? 



Secretary Brannan. Well, thera is a difference in the rules which 

 apply. We do not sell the cotton back into the market except through 

 the original owners and under careful circumstances. 



Mr. Pace. I want to say I think cotton will also have a depressing 

 effect. We have found it so in past years. When the Government 

 owned cotton, everybody was anxious about the price of cotton. 

 As you know, there was a law to prevent dumping it back in the 

 market. Any big supply that is available does have a depressing 

 effect, in my judgment. 



Secretary Brannan. As an economic fact, it does. 



Mr. Pace. That is right. 



Mr. Andresen. What will the support price be at the time you 

 have to acquire this pork? 



Secretary Brannan. If we have to acquire it in October, the support 

 price will be around $16.50 under existing law. 



Mr. Andresen. For what size and what quality hogs would that 

 be that would receive that price? 



Secretary Brannan. That is the range we are talking about. The 

 heavy hogs would probably go into the market place at loss than that, 

 and the choicer animals would be going into the market at a higher 

 figure than that on the date when we fine it necessary to step into the 

 market. In other words, you have to take the range between the 

 qualities and types of all commodities coming into the market place. 

 We do that in several other commodities. 



