1180 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Secretary, we may later find it necessary to call on 

 members of your staff to advise the committee on details. We know 

 how busy you are and we are greatly indebted to you for coming here 

 and aiding the committee. You may now be excused, Mr. Secretary. 

 Thank you very much. 



The next witness if Mr. Mark W. Pickell, the executive secretary 

 of the Corn Belt Livestock Feeders Association; Mr. Pickell, will you 

 come around? 



STATEMENT OF MARK W. PICKELL, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, 

 CORN BELT LIVESTOCK FEEDERS ASSOCIATION 



Mr. Pickell. My name is Mark W. Pickell. I am executive 

 secretary of the Corn Belt Livestock Feeders Association, with 

 executive offices at 176 West Adams Street, Chicago. This associ- 

 ation was formed by the State livestock feeders association from 

 Ohio on the east to Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota on the west. 

 Its president is C. B. Watson, of DeKalb, 111. The first vice president 

 is Herb. Barr, of Leoti, Kans., and the second vice president is E. H. 

 Mattingly, sheep breeder near St. Louis, Mo. 



We are opposed to the proposed program of subsidizing hog market- 

 ing on three bases, viz: 



(1) It is completely impractical of application. 



(2) It would be completely disastrous to the balance of the livestock 

 feeding industry. 



(3) Its cost could run well over a billion dollars and might come to 

 $2,000,000,000. 



Discussing these three points, before we make some suggestions as 

 to what should be done, we ofi'er the following: 



I It is completely impractical of application. 



Last week the manager of one of the largest commission firms in 

 the country, a firm that operates on 10 difi^erent markets, phoned me 

 to say that an investigation disclosed that 61.8 percent of all of their 

 consignments of hogs during the month of April had been in lots of 10 

 or less. I will confess that I was surprised. I did not think the ship- 

 ments would be that small per customer. So I checked on it, getting 

 reports from seven of the largest commission houses on the St. Louis 

 market, five at Omaha, one at Kansas City, four at Sioux City, and 

 four at St. Joseph. These reports, however, showed that the state- 

 ment of Alan Wilson of John Clay & Co. was conservative. The 

 average of all of these other reports showed that 65 percent of all of 

 the consignments of hogs to the stockyards during April were in lots 

 of 10 or less. 



This is very important from the viewpoint of practical application 

 of the proposed Brannan hog subsidy program. 



Last year only 40.2 percent of all of the hogs slaughtered under 

 Federal inspection were purchased at public stockyards. So of the 

 total of 47,614,000 hogs slaughtered under Federal inspection, approxi- 

 mately 19,140,000 were purchased at the yards. If 65 percent of 

 these were sold in lots of 10 or less, it would mean that there was a 

 minimum of 1,244,000 consignments, each of which would need to 

 be checked before checks would be written in payment of the subsidy. 

 The other 6,000,000 head were sold in consignments averaging not 

 over 25 per head. So there would be at least another 260,000 consign- 



