1174 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Secretary Brannan. That is the same situation with respect to 

 every other commodity. You break out a mean good average and 

 apply the price to that and then vary it in one direction or the other. 

 If you want it, we will put in the record a list of the grades, sizes, and 

 all the rest of it. 



Mr. Murray. That is what we should know, because you know 

 every farmer grades his eggs. 



Secretary Brannan. The farmer does know it; it is his business to 

 know it. 



Mr. Murray. Thirty-five cents is the base floor for standard eggs? 



Secretary Brannan. Yes. 



Mr. Pace. Are purchases now being made? 



Secretary Brannan. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Pace. Would you or not suggest that the production payment 

 method be used this year, then? Is that comparable with potatoes? 



Secretary Brannan. The amount of purchases have not gotten 

 too large so far, and we are in the middle of a program, and we felt 

 as though we probably ought to make it a general transition at a 

 specified time rather thaa to try to break the program in the middle. 



Mr. Pace. You would not, then, recommend that the egg program 

 be used this year? 



Secretary Brannan. That is right. 



Mr. Pace. In the event the program could be used on eggs in 1950, 

 are you prepared to give the committee any estimate of the cost of the 

 payment plan? 



Secretary Brannan. We would estimate it under various possi- 

 bilities as rumiing from around $331,000,000 to $367,000,000, assuming 

 we would be in the program all year long and that the price of eggs 

 would never go above the support at any time dm'ing the year. 



Mr. Pace. That is, the total cost woidd be three-hundred-and- 

 some-odd-million dollars? 



Secretary Brannan. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Pace. As compared with the present loss of $25,000,000 last 

 year? 



Secretary Brannan. Yes. But may I point out this very important 

 distinction? The reason the losses are quite small these past 2 or 3 

 years rests on the fact that we have had outlets for the dried eggs 

 that we have been able to purchase. We have put them in the school 

 lunch program; we have sold them to the Army and have sold them 

 to many offshore purchasers. But now those sources of sales are 

 beginning to dry up and have practically dried up ; so the investment 

 we put in the egg program now means or represents the potential 

 loss of almost all of the money that we may put into the program, 

 unless we can find some offshore man with a lot of dollars who will 

 buy dried eggs. 



We do keep them stored in frozen form until we get ready to 

 process for export. 



Mr. Murray. I would like to explore those section 32 funds once 

 more. As long as eggs have not been bought under section 32 for the 

 school lunch program 



Secretary Brannan. We have put eggs in the school lunch program. 



Mr. Murray. In a certain form — and that is the only livestock 

 product that has ever been bought with section 32 funds; $3,000,000 

 last year out of the 1949 bill. I wonder what is the possibility of 



