1170 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. Pace. I do not know whether it is practicable, but it has been 

 brought to me, and I wanted the benefit of your judgment. 



Now Mr. Murray has some questions. 



Mr. MuKRAY. What is the estimated production of hogs on the 

 farms in pounds in 1949? 



Mr. Richards. Mr. MmTay, the number of pounds of hve weight 

 in 1948 was 15,500,000,000. 



Air. Murray. According to table 10 on circular 670, there was a 

 production of 18,000,000,000 pounds of hogs. 



Mr. Richards. "Well, the production, of course, includes hogs 

 slaughtered on the farm. 



Mr. Murray. That is right. 



Mr. Richards. And marketing is what we are interested in. 



Mr. ^Murray. And the beef production in the United States is 

 the same amount— 18,000,000,000 pounds — according to this circular. 



Mr. Richards. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Murray. Mr. Secretary, frankly, if you are going to put this 

 in operation on hogs, from a lifetime of experience in the livestock 

 business — not that my opinion is of any great value to anyone but 

 myself — we might just as well take the payment plan hook, line, and 

 sinker. If anything happens to the price of pork, regardless of what 

 any of your economists might tell you, temporarily it may not be 

 true, but in normal times we cannot lower the price of pork without 

 also lowering the price of beef. 



Of course, the beef people are not in the picture, and evidently, from 

 their testimony here, they do not want to be in the picture. And 

 then on imports, we have had the first 8 months of this year 10 times 

 the number of cattle coming into the United States, beef cattle, as 

 we had in first 8 months of the last year. And how are we going to 

 keep from having the price of beef go down and all of the other 

 livestock products? I cannot see how you can take the position 

 that if hogs go down to 10 cents a pound without any marketing 

 responsibility on the part of the farmer that it won't have a bad 

 effect on the price of beef. 



Secretary Brannan. I think, Mr. Murray, we have agreed — I 

 agreed — that there is a sympathetic relationship. 



Mr. Murray. I thought so yesterday, but today you did not think 

 there was a sympathetic relationship. 



Secretary Brannan. No, sir; I am still agreeing there is a sym- 

 pathetic relationship. I am saying, however, I do not think that 

 sympathetic relationship is of the character of the Siamese twins 

 at all; that there is considerable latitude and flexibility or delayed 

 reaction, or however you might want to describe it, between the 

 change in the price of hogs and the change in the price of the other 

 meat animals. 



I also want again to say to you that I do not think that one factor 

 alone is the controlling factor; that you have to weigh the other 

 things which bear upon prices all the time, namely, supply and 

 demand in the specific commodity, because the rules of supply and 

 demand are operating in beef just as well as they are in pork. As soon 

 as you take the position that beef and pork are interchangeable, 

 tastewise and otherwise, and in attraction to the American consumer, 

 then you have to recognize the supply and demand factor in each 



