22 BULLETIlSr 1109, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



IMPRACTICABILITY OF PRICE CONTROL. 



At the present time the public entertains a vague fear that the 

 farmer may gain control over price by the exercise of monopoly 

 power through his cooperative marketing associations. Monopo- 

 lization of the supply of any "freely produced" goods is a task that 

 has never been accomplished for other than temporary periods. 

 Agricultural products are "freely produced"; that is, the important 

 farm products are grown over wide areas. Their production is not 

 confined to any one State, one nation, or one continent. 



The cranberry, for instance, requires a most highly specialized 

 combination of soil and moisture requirements — land that can be 

 flooded and drained at will. Because of the necessity of this highly 

 specialized cultural environment it is looked upon as a restricted 

 crop, one of the least freely produced among the agricultural prod- 

 ucts. Yet the area which can be devoted to cranberries is subject 

 to great expansion should the price of the fruit be such as to en- 

 courage the production of a greater supply. This country has a 

 goodly supply of swamp lands suitable for cranberry culture, which 

 would be brought under cultivation if the price of cranberries should- 

 encourage an increased supply. To maintain an abnormally high 

 price and at the same time to restrict production, it would be neces- 

 sary for the present growers to control all the potentially available 

 cranberry lands — a practical impossibility. 



Because farm products can be grown over such wide areas, the 

 monopoly of the supply of these products would require an organiza- 

 tion of national scope. The whole-milk supply of the cities is about 

 the only important exception to this generalization. Because of the 

 perishability of this commodity its production is confined to rather 

 restricted areas near the place of consumption. Yet it is doubtful, 

 indeed, whether producers of whole milk can be successful in any 

 large measure in the marketing of their products if their methods 

 depend upon monopoly power. Monopoly power in the marketing 

 of agricultural products, even in goods produced in restricted areas, 

 such as whole milk, defeats its own end. This defeat comes about 

 by reason of the fact that a higher than a competitive price en- 

 courages overproduction to an extent that the farmers' organization 

 becomes wholly unable to dispose of the excessive supply at a price 

 sufficient to maintain this increased production. Since monopoly 

 price presupposes the control of supply, it places the monopoliza- 

 tion of farm products practically beyond human accomplishment. 

 It is quite conceivable — although practically impossible — that the 

 number of acres planted could be regulated through organizations 

 or otherwise, but the amount that will be produced from tjiis acre- 

 age for any given year is a matter of conjecture at the time of plant- 



