1228 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



particularly at Durham, N. H. — that the potato industry went on 

 record that they felt that any support price should be a matter of 

 insurance and that they were not in favor of supports at high levels. 

 That hearing, as I believe you may recall, was at least 2 years ago. 

 We endorsed as far back as May 1948, the idea of a lower level of 

 support and acreage allotments with the very definite theory that by 

 acreage restrictions there would be no call for heavy expenditures in 

 the market place for No. I's. 



Mr. Andresen. This committee adopted the recommendation 

 which you made and we put that in the law. Did you ever have a 

 contract with the Government yourself where compensatory pay- 

 ments were involved on potatoes? Are you a dealer in potatoes as 

 well as a producer? 



Mr. McIntire. As far as I am concerned individually, I am a 

 producer. I will say for the record that since there has been a support 

 price of potatoes in my own personal operations I have offered to the 

 Government one carload of potatoes that would be classified as surplus. 

 I have sold to the Government two carloads of potatoes that were 

 certified seed shipped to Europe as certified seed for seed uses. I 

 have marketed my crop myself all through these years, but I am going 

 to say also that I have had a seed market which has permitted me to 

 do that. I do not propose to say that that is a typical situation. 



Mr. Andresen. I was not trying to get into your personal affairs, 

 but as you know, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 

 authority is given to the Secretary to make producer payments, which 

 he has done in the case of potatoes. In 1943 he had 16 agreements 

 which permitted the dealers or producers in potatoes to sell those 

 potatoes in the market at the market price and receive a check from 

 the Commodity Credit Corporation for the difference between what 

 the farmer got or the dealer got and the support-price level. 



Do you know of any agreements lilve that up in your area? 



Mr. McIntire. I was not associated with the Maine Potato 

 Growers, Inc., in the same capacity that I am at the present time, in 

 1943. I was a member and that was as far as my relationship went. 



However, I am familiar with the fact that such an agreement 

 did operate. Its details of operation I was not familiar with. I was 

 not close to the organizations or the dealers who participated in it. 

 However, I do know that there were contracts in Maine under that 

 arrangement. It was a problem of pulling out of the area the portion 

 of the crop that had no warm storage facilities and placing those in 

 storage and later reselling those in the market at a time when it was 

 considered that would impair the market the least. 



Mr, Andresen. I just bring this up to show that the Secretary of 

 Agriculture has existing authority under law to permit him to make 

 producer payments and to permit the commodity to be sold in the 

 open market at the supply-and-demand level. He has used it on 

 potatoes. He may have used it on other commodities. He has 

 the authority to use it on all other perishable commodities and 

 therefore there is no need for any legislation of this kind to give him 

 that authority. 



Mr. Murray. I have one short question. 



Mr. Pace. All right. We have five other witnesses and we have 40 

 minutes to hear them. 



