Reprmted from The Chicago Daily News 



U. S. PAYS H»GH PRICE 

 FOR FEEDING WORLD 



■ MERICA'S grocery bill is falling, 

 M but it still is close to the all-time 



/I ^'^^- 



LM Americans are paying a big price 



i-M for feeding the rest of the world. 



This is the most salient fact of 



our 1947 economy as Congress faces the 



issue: Where do we go from here? 



Big credits to the hungry nations as 

 advocated by Henry Wallace could and 

 undoubtedly will send food prices soar- 

 ing again. 



Limited food exports, on the other 

 hand, would be likely to hold prices 

 down or force them lower. 



COUPLE the export program with the 

 current high rate of employment and all- 

 time record payrolls and you have the 

 answer to a near 100 per cent rise in the 

 cost of dinner tonight since the food sur- 

 plus years of 1935-39. 



Take a look at our food exports dur- 

 ing the year 1945-46 alone: 



Forty-four per cent of our home-grown 

 wheat and flour went out of the country, 

 42 per cent of the dried milk, 31 per cent 

 of the skimmed milk, 45 per cent of the 

 rice, 41 per cent of dry beans and peas, 

 41 per cent of the canned fish, 18 per 

 cent of corn and corn products, 25 per 

 cent of the cheese, 1 1 per cent of the fats 

 and oils, and 10 per cent of the egg yield 

 in dried and frozen form. 



These and other export items add up 

 to 10 per cent of our total foods, pro- 

 duced here and imported into the United 

 States. 



PURCHASES for export by the Army, 

 the Department of Agriculture for ac- 

 count of foreign nations, and by private 

 traders acting for foreign buyers, are fol- 

 lowing the same pattern this year. 



This still leaves plenty for Americans 

 to eat — about 90 per cent of the total — 

 but it creates a high price pattern which 

 affects nearly all lines of food. 



The only thing that saves the 



situation from becoming worse 



for consumers is our continuing 



record crops. 



The wheat output, for example, has 

 spiraled from 758,000,000 bushels in the 

 year before the war to 1,291,000,000 

 bushels estimated for 1947. Corn pro- 

 duction zoomed from 2,316,000,000 



bushels to successive 3,000,000,000 

 bushel crops. 



* * * 



BEEF production is running at a new 

 40-year high. Dairymen are turning out 

 more milk, cheese, butter and ice cream 

 than ever before. 



Potatoes are over-flowing the 

 market place, and last year's big 

 onion and citrus fruit crops 

 dropped prices far below profit- 

 able returns to growers. 

 Turkeys and broiler chickens hit the 

 toboggan last winter. Prices fell below 

 government 90 per cent parity guarantee 

 levels. The same thing happened in po- 

 tatoes and for a while in eggs, so the 

 government moved in and bought. 



WHY DOES President Truman ap- 

 peal for lower prices while his agricul- 

 tural administrators buy produce to keep 

 prices up.-* 



The answer goes back to the war year 

 of 1942. The government asked farm- 

 ers to produce more soybeans, peanuts, 

 hogs, eggs, milk, chickens, wheat, corn, 

 sugar beets and a lot of other things. 

 The organized farmers said, 

 "O.K., but how about some price 

 insurance.' We're afraid a big 

 plowup will break the market as 

 soon as the war is over and leave 

 us holding the bag with all our 

 surpluses." 



The farmers took their cue from war 

 industries which had been awarded cost 

 plus contracts. 



So Congress enacted the Steagall 

 amendment which, in effect, guaranteed 

 the producers 90 per cent of parity, or 

 what they consider is a fair price, for the 

 years 1947 and ,1948. 



Flooded fields were 

 not on uncommon 

 sight In illlneis this 

 spring. Here Richard 

 Ericlcson of Orlond 

 Park surveys a 40- 

 acre lake on one of 

 his fields. Incessant 

 rains have dene ines- 

 timable damage to 

 grain crops. 



SO FAR, the government has found 

 it necessary to buy potatoes, eggs, tur- 

 keys, some chickens, dry milk and wool 

 to keep its pledge to farmers. 



The whole program has cost 

 between $100,000,000 and $200,- 

 000,000 instead of the $2,000,000,- 

 000 a year some government econ- 

 omists estimated it might cost. 

 What really is going on is that Uncle 

 Sam is lending money abroad so England, 

 France, China, Japan and others can buy 

 our wheat, eggs, dry milk, beef, lard, 

 corn, rice and vegetable oils. 



These foreign purchases keep prices 

 up, easing the problem of government 

 price supports at home. 



* * * 



FOOD PRICES averaged 122 per cent 

 of parity in March after a steady rise 

 from 94 in 1941. 



Is the government still paying 



farmers subsidies not to produce? 



This question arises over soil conser- 

 vation payments which totaled $253,- 

 523,000 in 1945-46. 



These payments were not made for 

 leaving farm lands idle. They were paid 

 to encourage farmers to conserve the soil 

 by buying lime and phosphates, strip 

 cropping, contour planting and cultiva- 

 tion to prevent erosion — tree planting, 

 sowing clover seed and winter cover 

 crops, etc. 



SECRETARY of Agriculture Ander- 

 son argues that the public has an inter- 

 est in soil maintenance and future food 

 production. 



If farmers let their land wash down 

 the river they will lose, of course, but so 

 will consumers when the food supply 

 drops and prices go up. 



Congress is planning sharply to 



reduce these payments for 1947 



and wipe them out entirely for 



next year. 



A lot of farmers agree that the pay- 

 ments are unjustified at a time when farm 

 income is high. 



Federal administrators fear not only 

 the loss of thousands of jobs, but they 

 have a genuine concern lest the whole soil 

 conservation program and the gains of 

 the last decade be wasted. 



L A. A. RECORD 



