Agriculture in an Uneasy World

This program is a video tape recording, especially edited for re-broadcast at this time. From Jenison Fieldhouse on the campus of Michigan State University for National Educational Television, station WMSB presents a special report, agriculture in an uneasy world. You are about to observe an historic meeting. Five former Secretaries of Agriculture will meet for the first time on the same platform to apply their experience and vast information to the problems of agriculture in an uneasy world. Over 5,000 people will be assembled here so to see and hear the discussion. The highlight event of Farmers Week 1961 on the MSU campus will take place on this platform in just a few minutes. Under the balcony on the far side

of the building is the speaker's platform, flanked by two of the television cameras we'll be using. To your right of the platform is the Michigan State University Concert Band. In the foreground are the invited guests who include the governor of the state of Michigan, the honorable John Swanson, members of the state legislature and other state officials. From the entrance near the left side of your picture, the members of the official party and the platform party will make their appearance soon and proceed between the rows of guests and visitors in solemn procession to the platform and the seats just in front of the platform. In the processional will be the members of the university's governing body, Board of Trustees, administrative officers of the university and the many chairman whose committees have organized and prepared this huge Farmers Week program of events. In the platform party will be the distinguished visitors who will take part in the program today and President John A. Hanna

of the university. President Hanna will sit at this table and will introduce the guests and moderate the discussion. On his left will be the five former secretaries of agriculture in this order, Henry A. Wallace, Claude R. Wickard, Clinton P. Anderson, Charles F. Brandon, Ezra Taf Benson. At this table seats are placed for the four questionnaires who will present their own questions and those submitted through newspapers and radio and television stations in a question and answer period following the formal presentations of the five secretaries. During the past hours, the five former secretaries of agriculture have been putting the final touches on their 12-minute addresses for this audience, describing the problems, the pressures, the triumphs and the defeats of their respective terms of office. The chronological order of their terms of office will determine the order of their appearance on the program. The first of the five was Henry A. Wallace, shown here as he arrived at Lansing's capital airport last night. He brought to the cabinet

post a 25-year background in agricultural journalism. He was elected Vice President of the United States for one term, served as Secretary of Commerce from 1945 to 1946, was the Progressive Party candidate for President in 1948 and is presently engaged in farming and research. Wallace's term of service as Secretary of Agriculture was followed by that of Claude R. Wickard, who also served in the cabinet post during the Roosevelt administration. A graduate of Purdue University and a native of Indiana, Secretary Wickard served in various capacities in the United States Department of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940 and was under Secretary of Agriculture before becoming Secretary in 1940. After leaving the post in 1945, he became administrator of the rural electrification administration until 1953, and for the last seven years has been engaged in farming in Indiana. He's just recently accepted another governmental post.

Clinton P. Anderson was Secretary of Agriculture from 1945 until 1948, during the first term of the Truman administration. Secretary Anderson brought to the cabinet post a varied background of experience in journalism, business, and public service. Since the conclusion of his term, he's been a United States senator from New Mexico. Charles F. Brannon followed in the cabinet of President Truman, a native of Colorado, with a law background. He began his association with the United States Department of Agriculture in 1935. He was Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for four years, prior to becoming Secretary in 1948. Since 1953, he has served as counsel for the National Farmers Union in Denver. Ezra Taft Benson brought to the cabinet post a varied background of service and experience. He was Secretary of Agriculture during the entire Eisenhower administration. Secretary Benson has been very active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and now

devotes full time to his work as an official in that church. Serving as moderator for this distinguished panel is Dr. John A. Hanna, President of Michigan State University. Dr. Hanna has served on numerous committees of the American Council on Education, and has been awarded honorary degrees by many educational institutions. Although President Hanna has never taken an active role in partisan politics, he has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel, as Chairman of the United States Section of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, on the International Development Advisory Board, and as Chairman of the Civil Rights Commission, all presidential appointments. Now it's time to go to the platform for the historic meeting of these five former Secretaries who guided the fortunes of government and agriculture through 27 troubled years. To permit us to package this delayed rebroadcast in a conventional program time segment, we've deleted from the formal statements of each of the Secretaries, those comments dealing only with the historic facts of the period in office. The Secretaries' analyses of our current

farm problems and suggestions for solutions have been preserved. The first of the honored guests served the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933 to 1940, from the depth of the Great Depression to the beginning of the Great War, the Honorable Henry A. Wallace. The one large area where the American genius for organization and efficient hard work shines forth most clearly in definite superiority over all other large nations is in agriculture. Russia will overtake us in many industrial fields before she begins to catch up with us in agricultural efficiency. Here we're supreme and are likely to remain that way for a long time. Where else can one farm worker feed 25 people, where the bun and supplies a

good food, containing excellent potions from animal sources, as well as a variety of fruits and vegetables? From the standpoint of health, most citizens of the USA get too many calories rather than too little. In 1932 agricultural surpluses were built up partly because of low purchasing power on the part of our unemployed and partly because of unemployment overseas, but today only a small part of our surpluses is due to unemployment at home. The surpluses accumulated during the past ten years are due largely to rapidly expanding technology. The problem is to turn these vast surpluses into a blessing instead of a curse. Public law for 80 passed in 1954 is one mechanism for doing this. We can put our vast surpluses. We can use our vast surpluses either as a weapon in the Cold War or to develop backward nations to a point where they can help themselves. We can store vast surpluses in places where

they can be protected from fallout, both in this country and abroad. A strategic reserve is all important. I felt this in 1939. I feel it many times as strongly in 1961. Lastly, looking ahead ten years, I feel that all secretaries of agriculture have to recognize that government is in the agricultural business to stay. I don't like it. Farmers don't like it. But how are farmers to get equality of bargaining power without help from government? The bargaining power of both corporations and labor comes largely from government. If minimum wages are guaranteed, farmers will insist on minimum prices. They'll never get parity of income as defined during the campaign. If they could be sure of half that amount year in and year out, they would be lucky. As long as there are subsidies, director indirect, either of power or money to non-farm groups, farmers will want their equalizer. The honorable Claude R. Wickard says part of the solution to the farm problem lies in holding

down the rate of increase in production. He advocates a government land retirement program, but the market must be expanded also. During the last twenty years, we have increased total agriculture production 47%. Our production per acre has increased 44%. And our production per farm worker has increased 200%. Our production has been increasing about 4% faster annually than our population has been increasing. It's my belief that the most important tasks of the President Secretary and all the come-later will be to see what we can do. To see that this American agriculture revolution was created by our advanced research, our ingenuity, our superior educational processes, and our American system of farming is not allowed to destroy the same forces which created it, and this can happen. If American farmers are

forced or even encouraged to continue producing for a market which does not exist, basically, the farm problem is to bring production and effective demand in the balance. And we devoutly hope that everything crack was done to make our abundance available to hungry people at home and abroad. Action has been taken within the last ten days to use more of our surpluses of food to feed the families of the unemployed is most commendable. The same thing can be said for the recently announced proposed food for peace program. There can be no better way of reducing our huge stockpiles than by these means or these methods. The first of the Truman administration's secretaries, after three years in office, stated his personal attitude toward the formulation of farm policy this way. I want to see farm

legislation developed by farmers through their own farm organizations in cooperation with the members of Congress who are sincerely interested in the long-term interests of farmers and who are determined to fit a sound farm program into our free enterprise system. Those are the words of the Honorable Clinton P. Anderson. The farm problem is far more than a problem of surpluses and the threats of surpluses. It is also a problem of people and land. People who have certain cherry slopes and aspirations they would like to see come true and land that should be wisely used for the satisfaction of human wants, now and in the future. There is a crying need for all of these aspects of the farm program to be brought into real focus so that we may regain our perspective and take up the challenge that we face. Indeed, with the problems of agriculture as people, we must first decide as a nation what kind of agriculture we really want. We can decide

between a democratic world of abundance and a regimented world of scarcity. When that decision is reached, we then must be willing and ready to do what it takes to bring about such an agriculture and be prepared to stand the cost of getting it done. As I envision the kind of world in which we live, we have no practical alternative but to accept the fact that our agriculture must be one of abundance. We therefore must turn to live with it to work as our agriculture's capability for abundance, to sustain it and make it conform to the realities of demand, national and world conditions and the progress of science and technology. What is required is not so much a detailed legislative formula, but the development of the kind of flexibility that will permit the managers or administrators of the program to make needed decisions under the broad guidelines of congressional intent. We also need competent administration and a will to administer proper programs despite

the pressures. Overall, we need a more realistic and forward-looking approach to our agricultural and rural problems. Fundamentally, the broad requirements for such an approach have not changed much over the past decade and a half. My own feeling is that the policy of organising a sustained and realistic abundance still makes sense for this country's agriculture and its people, and it also makes sense if we are to accept and carry out our responsibilities of readership in the world of nations. After Anderson came Brennan who follows him on this platform today, the Colorado lawyer Brennan says he and farmers were ever confronted with the law of supply and demand, but he found this law was more honored in its violations and manipulations by those who dominated many marketplaces than by its free application. The honorable Charles F. Brennan, who served from 1948 to 1953.

In my judgment, the broad agricultural policy of this government has been constant since the days of Franklin Roosevelt. It is well-stated in the opening paragraph of the AAA legislation and remains undemanded. So also the firm problems which confront this government have not basically changed. They involved the distribution of our abundance domestically and also throughout the world for the achievement of the ultimate objectives of all mankind, namely a peaceful world in which all men have a reasonable opportunity to develop their intellectual and spiritual potentialities. We continue to fail in this responsibility so long as our abundance remains unused or undevoted to this end. Somehow this government has fallen far short, both on the domestic and world front, in applying this God-given abundance to the purpose and objective for which, in my humble judgment, he gave us the skills and resources to produce it.

It is the responsibility of the Secretary of Agriculture to so use the law and resources at his disposal to make certain that there is always an ample supply of food on hand for our domestic needs, in peace and in emergency, for our foreign trade, and now for use in supporting the free peoples of the world in the contest with communism for the minds of men. The Secretary of Agriculture is today charged with a greater responsibility to consumers and the public than he has ever been here to for. It is impossible for consumers to reconcile ever-mounting prices for their daily bread with the ever-decreasing prices to the farmers who produce the essential ingredients of their daily bread. Above all, it is impossible for any of us to reconcile the $6 billion annual costs of operating the Department of Agriculture these past

few years and its resultant tax burden when we think of the negative results or absence of any benefit to both farmers and consumers. The last of the five Secretary's on today's program is the eight-year veteran of the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enjoys quoting a poem that describes the Secretary of Agriculture as destined always to live in an ever-normal doghouse and who states his basic philosophy in these words. I believe firmly that our freedom is a God-given blessing, vouchsafed to us under the Constitution, that it is more precious than life itself, and that it must be continually guarded, blessed we lose it bit by bit, to big government, the honorable Ezra Taft Benson. Based on a lifetime of experience as a farmer, county agent, and in formulated activities including eight interesting years as Secretary, this is what I think needs to be done in the best

interests of our farm people, the nation, and the free world. First, the food for peace programs should be continued and expanded, where feasible. Remarkable use has been made of our surplus stocks through special export programs, but there are additional steps that can be taken. Food is serving humanitarian needs in foreign lands, aiding in market and economic development, and promoting the cause of peace and freedom. Second, programs of research to develop new foreign and domestic markets, including new industrial uses for our farm products, should be vigorously pushed forward. Third, laws should be enacted to improve the price support mechanism, by providing levels of price support that will allow farm commodities to move into regular marketing channels, and at the same time afford adequate price protection to our farmers. Fourth, the use of farmland should be further adjusted in accordance with needs

by such a program as an expanded conservation reserve. Fifth, the rural development program should be emphasized and expanded as rapidly as feasible. We can help our small farmers make adjustments which they want and need to make to improve their standard of living. I would emphasize that as Secretary of Agriculture, there are many more joys than disappointments, many more achievements than frustrations. In spite of the inevitable controversy, the office provides a wonderful opportunity to serve people who are the salt of the earth, American farmers and ranchers. In the remainder of this broadcast, the five Secretaries of Agriculture will meet the questions of four agricultural reporters in a discussion moderated by Michigan State University President Dr. John Hannah. The second half of this forum is to be devoted to the questioning of the distinguished speakers and specific points of interest. Some of these questions have been

asked by Michigan farmers and will be posed by the panel of questioners at their request. Some will originate with the members of the panel themselves. Now let me present to you those who will pose the questions to the individual farmer secretaries of agriculture. And I ask each of them to rise as I introduce them so that you may recognize them. And they are from left to right. First, Mr. Milen Grinnell of East Lansing, Editor of the Michigan Farm. Mr. Grinnell will you rise. Professor Dale Hathaway of the Department of Agriculture and Economics here at Michigan State University and at one time in one of the economic advisors to the President of the United States. The third, Mr. Carol Streeter of Philadelphia, Editor of the Farm Journal, Mr. Streeter.

And the fourth, Mr. Lauren Soth, the editorial page editor of the Des Moines Register Tribune of Des Moines Island. All of these gentlemen are both deeply interested in and widely experienced in the field of agricultural policy. And will I am sure help to make this period interesting and stimulated? We are grateful to them for coming here to participate in this forum. The questioners have been requested to make their questions concise and specific. And the former secretaries have been asked to make their replies as brief as possible in order that we may develop the subject fully within the time available. And I will begin the questioning by asking Mr. Soth of the Des Moines Registered Tribune to pose the first question. I'd like to direct my first question to Mr. Wallace. Yes. Mr. Wallace, you said that you thought government was in agriculture to stay.

And you said you thought farmers needed the power of government to bargain. Farmers needed the power of government to help them get bargaining power. I'd like to explore that a little farther. I assume that you mean some kind of supply control. That farmers need help from the government in controlling this production of their products. And how far do you think we need to go in this? Quota controls or what? I think we should go the minimum route having to do with key points. I think in particular the feed brain livestock complex has a key point with regard to self-adjusting products like eggs or broilers.

I'm very skeptical about government stepping in except in cases of very unusual need. But at the same time, I do recognize that with the human stomach as it is, that a very small surface can cause a very great damage to farmers without doing any good to the consumer. And I do think that we need to call in the very best brains to consider what could be done to obviate that very great damage which is done to farmers. I think for instance of the large number of New Jersey egg producers who went out last year. Was that a good thing or not? I'll leave it there. I'm asked to be brief. Is that fair Mr. Hanna? Is there another question?

Mr. Strader. Oh, he asked me a question. My question is somewhat along the same line as Mr. Soss. Everyone agrees that we're producing about five to seven percent too much of a few things. And I should like to ask, I'd like to ask all of these five secretaries very briefly which mechanism they would choose for bringing down the supply of these things that are an overproduction to a more desirable level. It seems to me there are about three choices that anyone mentions. One is to let price do it. Another is to take sufficient land out of production somehow. And the third one that we're hearing quite a lot about just recently is to give farmers market quotas to control what they're allowed to sell. There may be others, but at least these are three ways and I wonder which one of these routes these gentlemen would favor each of them. It's a

pretty sizable question. That's a very big question. If we're going to address to all five of them, suppose we go on rotation starting with Mr. Benson, you've heard the question. I'll not repeat it. What's the technique to reduce this production five to seven percent? It's required. First of all, I would like to say that I think the record indicates that our attempts to fix prices and control production in agriculture have failed rather miserably. I think we need to place our emphasis on research, education, and market development and permit price to play more nearly its role in helping to direct consumption or production and consumption. Four-fifths of agriculture is free today and is in fairly good balance. That doesn't mean that we can move in the direction I've indicated immediately. It will take time, but I do believe that we need to place our emphasis on markets,

on research, on education, and put less emphasis on government action. It seems to me the economics of the farm problem are rather simple. It's the politics of the problem that's baffling. What farmers really need is less government in agriculture, less politics in agriculture. Mr. Bratton. Well, you know, I'm sure that every group in the nation would say the same thing for itself. I'm sure all the bankers would say we need less government in banking, but if you ask them, do you need the government taking care of somebody else's business other than mine? They'd probably say, well, I think there's some problems over there that the government ought to take care of. When we come down to the final analysis of a situation in which our country

is capable of producing more than it absorbs in normal channels of trade and commerce, then in my opinion, history has told us that the people must step in to the operation of their marketing and their production through their own government. After all, the government isn't somebody over there. I'm a part of it. In each and every one of you are a part of it, and whether or not you get good government or in agriculture or anything else depends upon whether or not you supply good participation at your level. So let's don't separate ourselves from our government here and say, this is something bad that I have nothing to do with. Finally, I think, if, finally, I think if we ask our government to provide an opportunity for orderly marketing

of our farm products and reasonable prices in the marketplace, then farmers should not hesitate to accept reasonable regulations or controls of either their production or their marketing. And this has been the philosophy of this government ever since the Triple A act, and nobody has attacked it forthrightly and straight on. And I don't think they will, in a long time. That's dirt. Senator Anderson. Well, I think I'd try to find out where the trouble was and go after that spot, as to the places where the trouble isn't. For instance, Cotton, we had about 10 million bales produced in 1957. We had about 15 million bales produced in 1959, but the 15 million bales in 1959 didn't hurt us as bad as the 10 million bales in 1957. So it isn't always large production that causes trouble.

We had a more realistic cotton program and we moved cotton in unprecedented quantities for that program. Our wheat program is out of land, our feed grain program is bad, and we ought to spend our time on those programs and leave alone cotton and rice which seem to get along pretty well. It might not be too bad an idea to cut out 250 million dollars to solve conservation payments if they're being used to improve land and then land being put to rest in another program. I don't think it makes too much sense to take out a whole lot of land in an acreage reserve program and then stimulate people to fertilize the rest of it by 250 million dollar payment. I think we ought to decide what we need and spend time on that. Mr. Wicker, I believe the question is if we are producing 5% more than we can dispose of at the satisfactory price, what we do about it. There's just one place to begin that with a land itself, let's have some kind of orderly land retirement program, which will preserve the kind

of American farming system which has meant so much to us and to the entire world. Last Mr. Henry Wallace, what's your answer to the question? I feel very strongly that it is important that the farmer have equality of bargaining power and I would agree completely with Secretary Benson if there were no labor unions, if there were no corporations, if there were no subsidies for ships, if there were no subsidies for magazines. I long for that primitive existence myself. I made that way. I hate to see government intervene, but we're not living in that kind of world, which the American farmer really

longs for, not living in that kind of world at all. As a matter of fact, we're living in a kind of world where perhaps the best occupation farmers could be engaged in would be the growing of geese to produce feathers for feather bedding, both in labor and in industry. Thank you very much, Mr. Wallace. Professor Hathaway, do you have a question? Senator Anderson and several other of our distinguished speakers have indicated a good deal of satisfaction with flexibility of the type mentioned in the Agricultural Act of 1948. However, Mr. Brandon recommended that new legislation be passed soon after taking office.

I wonder if he would like to outline why at that time he thought changes were necessary and whether he still feels that those changes were desirable. To address to Mr. Brandon? Yes, sir. Well, Mr. Hathaway and ladies and gentlemen, if you're expecting me to say that I'm not about to disavow the Brandon plan, you can change your mind. I do not. While I think the Act of 1948 had a great deal of virtue, I still think that there was room for improvement. There were, it needed greater flexibility and Senator Anderson, they find it here this afternoon, flexibility in means and methods of dealing with the many problems which confront the Secretary of Agriculture when he undertakes to provide some stability

in the marketplace for a very wide variety of props from the perishable, quickly perishable to the almost indestructible storeables such as cotton that it did need additional provisions. I think the effort to provide them was sound as I think subsequent efforts to adapt the law to the problems as they develop is sound. I don't think you can freeze any law at its condition and experience and say we'll never do we should never do anything else about that. If that were true, the Congress wouldn't hardly need to convene very often. Any other Secretary want to comment on that general question? Senator Anderson? Well, I just want to say this. I think maybe out of fairness to Mr. Brennan, it ought to be pointed out that the Congress and the firem organizations worked on

the Agricultural Act of 1948. But immediately after the 49th election, Mr. Wilson surprises, the demand came up, let the administration bring up a program and that's been followed consistently ever since and I think it's bad. They wanted Mr. Benson to come up with some cure-all for everything. Now they're going to ask poor over Freeman that's had very little agricultural experience to come out and solve the whole problem. Now this thing comes back to the Congress and the firem organizations and if they don't come in with some leadership, I think it's wrong to say, well, let the new Secretary come out with a complete and comprehensive program and when he does have time to do it, he catches help from every direction. Mr. Benson, do you want to comment? President Hannah, if we had a few more members in the Congress like Senator Anderson,

it'd be a lot easier for the Secretary of Agriculture. I'd just like to say this that we can produce more of almost anything than we can consume in this country. If there's the price in Sunday there, government imposed particularly to induce that production. When government gets into the pricing field, we're usually in difficulty. I think the best thing the government can do is to withdraw from it and put their emphasis in other areas. Mr. Wallace, with regard to price as being a determinant of production, I have to be in the Seaborn business in 1932 and we put out Seaborn on the basis of getting back half the amount of the increase over the ordinary corn produced. We got very substantial amounts

of corn and we sold a great bit of it at 10 cents a bushel at the nearest elevator and some for six cents a bushel. Did that low price control production, I leave it to you, does low price control production in these great basic crops. In the case of eggs I granted, in the case of potatoes I granted, in the case of many of the horticultural crops I granted, but when you take these great basic crops, you and Michigan don't know too much about those. I'm throwing it up to you, you don't. But in Iowa and Indiana and Illinois and Nebraska and Kansas and South Dakota and Minnesota and this great terrific producing region they know an awful lot about that and they know that price does not control production to any great extent there. And in addition to that I wish to say this that there is such a thing as responsibility to the soil, responsibility to future generations.

And if we go ahead terrifically mining these soils as we were under the uncontrolled production situation in 1930 to 32, in that particular period we were mining and not putting back. I think it's important to think about the soil and I have no apologies to make to anyone with regard to the 1938 act which set the prices at 52 to 75 percent. It is a disaster protection. I have no apologies to make to a single soul in this entire group with regard to that legislation. Mr. Wicked. I had intended to make a statement which I will now make in which sort of amplifies what Secretary Wallace had just said about the effect of prices upon production. But this young lady with the two fingers down here would provide me that opportunity

to make it now. I'm a farmer. I know how I react to the farmer and how my fellow farmers react and here is the trouble with the prices reducing production, low prices. Here's what the farmers will do. We farmers, when prices go down, will sacrifice in our homes. We will let our buildings and our equipment deteriorate. We will do all the things we can in order to have enough money to buy the good seeds and the fertilizer and the feed additives and all the other things to keep up our production or even to increase it because that's all we as individual farmers can do. Don't let's forget that very fundamental thing. Then lower prices in those farmers who increase their production because they have to increase their volume, act as individuals, in order to meet the overhead and farming. And I hope that some farmers in this audience

will agree with me on that particular thing. And that's why. That's what I want to raise one other kind of fundamental thing in this whole agricultural picture. We don't want a scarcity program in the United States. The consumers don't want it. We couldn't afford it to try to produce exactly what the effective market would take. We want to have reserves. That's for our protection and everybody else. But let's don't charge that bill up to we farmers who produce it. That's a expense that's just as short of belongs to the entire nation as much as our pilot nations or anything else. What we have for our protection and for the safety of the free world. Mr. Salth, do you have another question? I'd like to ask Mr. Benson a question. You say that farmers should get their fair return in the marketplace

and that you don't think the government should engage in price fixing. What do you think about the government buying up $9 billion worth of grain, keeping it off the market, disposing of it overseas. And thereby protecting farm incomes that way as we've been doing in recent years. Let me go just a little bit further. You say that four-fifths of agriculture is free from government intervention, but isn't it true that this policy we've been following under you, piling up the grain and starring it, disposing of it overseas, has not protected all agriculture. Not just the wheat farmer, but livestock and everyone else. And hasn't that been good for agriculture? Well, of course, under the old legislation we've been operating under.

We had no choice but to take over the commodities that was written into law. Many of these support levels have been at points above competitive levels so the planet could not move into consumption. Therefore, it moved into government warehouses. And the government warehouse, of course, is not a market. With a flexible play support system, had we headed at the end of the law, or as Congress intended, we would not have this build up. The commodities would move into consumption. Our markets would expand whether they contract. When we came in in 1954, we had lost about 60% of our cotton market abroad simply because we priced cotton out of world markets. And it had accumulated in government warehouses. We must be competitive in all of our commodities, in price, in quality, and in promotion. If we're not competitive, then we lose markets.

But what would have happened to farm income these last few years if we hadn't had these programs? I think in the long run, you don't help farm income by accumulating great surpluses and letting them hang over the market year after year. They're bound to have a bad effect. Unless the government is going to take over the marketing completely and fix prices. What would have happened to farm income in the last eight years if we hadn't had these programs? Well, as a matter of fact, in the areas where we didn't have government programs, government interference, we've had better markets than we have in the other areas. They know that was some help during the period of adjustment because we got no change in the legislation. The economists who have studied this question say land-grant college economists and some government economists say that farm income, net farm income, would have been one third lower if we hadn't had these programs. That's the answer I was trying to...

And some economists indicate that we farm income overall would have been two billion dollars more or had it not been for government interference in the field of products. So what are you going to do? Mr. Wallace, you would like to make a comment on this particular point. I just wonder if I could reverse the tables and ask a question of a member of the panel. Go ahead. I'd like to ask Mr. Sothra and the other member who feels so inclined to answer. If it is true that we're spending, say, 40 billion a year on our military and perhaps have accumulated some 100 billion or more in the way of military hardware all over the world, one kind or another, is it too much to have from the standpoint of the overall security of the nation and getting around to a mental attitude with regard to our so-called circles? Is it too much,

as we surveyed the necessary security of our nation in case of utmost extremity? Is it too much to have 9 billion stored in this country and abroad in the form of food? Is it too much to have 15 billion stored? We've had a regular drum fire from the various city papers with regards to the utter indicative consumers' paying, and you belong to one of these city papers. I don't know that your city paper has been doing this kind of thing, but I just wonder if it is too much to have even as much as 15 billion surplus from the standpoint of the welfare of the country in view of the dangers involved when we consider how much has been accumulated in the form of a military hardware. What is real security? It's what I'm asking. Well, if I understand the question correctly, it's whether we've been subsidizing agriculture too heavily in light of the world situation and what we spend on military goods. My answer is no, and I think that too often,

we discuss this problem of agricultural subsidies in terms of the total US Department of Agriculture Budget, most of which goes for city people, and a fairly small part of it, less than half, goes really for subsidies to foreign people. Two to three billion dollars a year is compared with 40 billion for defense, and I don't think that's exorbitant at all. I think it's a very good thing that we have had these subsidies in recent years for agriculture. Now, I'll professor half a leg. There have been several mentions of greater use of our farm abundance abroad. Just practically, what can we do that hasn't been done in recent years in this regard, and why hasn't it been done? I think that question perhaps should start with Mr. Benson and then go to others who've made mention of this item. I mentioned earlier that our exports

last year were at an all-time high in dollar value and in volume. We have had a tremendous increase in our exports abroad. We have developed new markets. We've had an expansion of markets. I think we have not reached the saturation port, Dr. Gathaway, but I do feel that it's going to take some real effort and real work and real promotion abroad to further increase our exports, but I think it can be done. We have developed some new markets, for example, in the case of poultry. Markets that did not exist. We're now selling some $50 million worth of dress poultry a year to Germany, and 12 to 15 million to Switzerland, which are new markets. We've expanded markets for dairy products and wheat products in Japan to an introduction of a school lunch program, and other market development projects. I think we must keep working at this. I think we can further

expand our markets at home and abroad, but it's going to take real effort. There's another secretary I want to add to that response. Mr. Brannon. Dr. Hanna, I suppose I know one who has injected this particular note more often than any of the other speakers at the rostrum here today. I would like to simply say this, that the question goes beyond the development of normal markets. The question is whether or not there are uses for this in our effort to win to the causes of the free peoples of the world, the many millions of uncommitted peoples of the world, and whether or not food is one of the real effective instruments that we should use for it. Now, I think the food for peace legislation, which is on the books ought to be grossly expanded and implemented, and that if we did so,

we could do so with a great deal with less money than we are using now to store it. This is the area, it seems to me, in which we must very carefully explore the use of these great resources. Senator Anderson? Well, I'd like to point out that I had some responsibility for food right after the war when we were trying to feed people in other lands. We've got a great surplus of wheat now. Then it was so scarce that we almost had to ration ourselves. We had to put our total amount of unallotted wheat in this country down to 75 million bushels when the millers all told me it must ever come below 200 million bushels. But we went down to 70 million bushels, 75 million bushels, and sacrificed in order to take care of people in other countries who were hungry. Now, if we could do it when wheat is scarce, why can't we send them something when wheat is

in surplus? Mr. Wallace, do you want to comment on this one? Well, I would like to say that I admire Secretary Benson's very strenuous efforts to utilize public law 480 to expand large quantities of stuff. I was all over the sea since 1954 I understand it pretty close to $4 billion worth have been sent abroad. Is that correct? Is it also correct that India is one of the leading countries to whom we've sent? That's sent. Is it also correct that Yugoslavia is perhaps second? No, I think probably Spain. Pakistan may be second. No, I think Pakistan is fourth maybe. But Pakistan is one of the big ones and I'm not sure about Yugoslavia. Yeah, Pakistan ranks pretty high or continuous population is very high. But as you examine the 4 billion, the countries to which it's gone, you realize that it seems to me that I'm not criticizing a tall mind because I think

you've done a splendid job on this front. But a beginner always has trouble feeling a situation out. It seems to me that we could now begin to utilize this extraordinary power represented by this vast supply. Use it more consciously to channel the violence of these nationalistic aspirations. It has been impossible for you to do it thus far in quite that month and if it could be done through the United Nations more largely or through the Food and Agriculture Organization to take off some of the cursors and if we could realize that this is a temporary thing and that the local currencies that we get in exchange are to be used carefully to set up the type of fertilizer plants. I was looking over an FAO prognostication for fertilizer and they've got

great plants, beautiful FAO documents just coming up on great plans for fertilizers in India and Pakistan and everywhere. If we can see that the wheat that we send there and the rights and there's going to be there has been under the Eisenhower administration and I congratulate the Eisenhower administration on that billion and a half dollar program over a five year period and now there's going to be a greater expansion of that apparently realizing that if India goes and all Asia goes if all Asia goes then Africa goes. I don't think we begin to realize the utter importance. I say utter utter utter importance of this surplus in saving the free world. Government does enter in there and I think Secretary Benson you'll want it to enter in there to make sure that this surplus is used with the greatest intelligence not to hurt Canada not to hurt Argentina not to hurt Australia through the United Nations to make sure that those countries are in on the two. God grant that even Russia would want to come in on it because

this thing if it's allowed to go is going to hurt Russia I think even more than it hurts us at these nationalistic aspirations. She's going to get hurt there whether Tom fooling around she's going to get hurt bad. Mr. Benson, go ahead or final comment Mr. Benson. That's him. Go ahead. I was going to say certainly Russia needs more food that she needs more of practically everything except the emissions. May I say first of all that I think there has never been such an effort put into the movement of surpluses abroad and even gifts to needy people as we've experienced during recent years I hope we can do even better in the days ahead. For example our food products that are in surpluses are made available without limitation ask the quantity to all churches relief welfare organizations there are some limitations that don't appear on the surface. For example we get run into some opposition when we move

quantities of wheat into some countries because farmers say it's going to depress their prices and they we run into resistance we run into cases where they don't have sufficient port facilities to unload the boats and when they get them unloaded they don't have the storage capacity or the transportation inside the country that's why under 480 there is provision made to take foreign currencies in exchange for these commodities then loan the currencies back for economic development and in that economic development they build transportation facilities port facilities in order that they might be able to handle more of these commodities that are needed. I agree with Secretary Wallace we ought to do everything in our power to make our abundance available to needy people around the world. The record that has been made I think all will agree is outstanding that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to do better and I believe that Secretary Freeman and his associates will try to do better and I wish them every success.

Ladies and gentlemen I am sure we all agree that we could continue this interesting exchange of questions and answers indefinitely without exhausting the subject. However we have run out of radio and TV time and it would be unfair to our distinguished guests to impose further upon their time and energies so we'll conclude this program at this point. I am sure that you share my feeling that this has been a most interesting and enlightening program and if it has served to widen general understanding of the problems of agriculture in an uneasy world and the strength and public appreciation of the importance of agriculture to our national well-being it will have served its purpose well. Again our sincere thanks and gratitude to the fine to the five former Secretaries of Agriculture for making it possible for the College of Agriculture at this University to present this unique program in farmers' week. Our gratitude to the

members of the panel of questioners to those who arranged this program and to you who made up this audience. Thank all of you very much. Good afternoon. We are adjourned. This has been a long two hours I am sure for the five Secretaries of Agriculture. They have presented their own views and then faced the questioning of the four panelists but it's not over by any means. From here the platform party will go to the office of athletic director Biggie Munn where the five Secretaries of Agriculture will face of all things a news conference so the questioning will go on for some time after this. These past two hours have been spent in the Geneson Field House on the campus at Michigan State University where the first time almost 30 years of experience in the top administration of federal farm policies has been brought to bear on the problems of agriculture in today's uneasy world. Five former Secretaries of

Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace, Claude R. Wicker, Clinton P. Anderson, Charles F. Brandon, and Ezra T. Benson have presented and expounded their opinions on our agricultural problems. Questioners were Lauren Soth of the Des Moines Register Interimion, Carol Streeter of the Farm Journal. Mylon Grinnell of the Michigan Farmer and Dale Hathaway Professor of Agriculture Economics at Michigan State University. This historic meeting of the five Secretaries was the highlight event of Michigan State University's 46th Annual Farmers Week Celebration. From Geneson Field House on the campus of Michigan State University, this has been a special report. Agriculture in an uneasy world produced for national educational television by W. M. S. B. News and Special Events Director Rob Downey, Technical Supervisor Don Dombrowski, produced and directed by Bob Page. This is National Educational Television.