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turn export grain that might be at a port of embarkation in New York, under the substitution provision of the act?

Mr. MAYER. That is not true with regard to corn.

Mr. WHITTEN. It is true with regard to cotton. Pursuing this matter further, would such a provision as that relieve the situation to any extent? The bill does apply to cotton. If that authority were included in this act of 1956 giving you the authority of substitution, which they do in the cotton export program, would that relieve your situation to any degree?

Mr. FARRINGTON. It would change the situation to some extent. It would not make the export market available to the producers for their export crop. Also, there is this fear in important segments of the trade that if CCC sells corn below the market price in Peoria and the same person exports something else from Philadelphia, you have a subsidized stock floating around in the domestic market that could be upsetting.

Mr. WHITTEN. I do not follow you too much in some of your arguments because if the trade and the Commodity Credit Corporation have grain or some other commodity in hand it is in hand, and if you can sell competitively on the foreign market presumably you will sell so much. If we announce to the world we are not going to sell it, that would have the effect of increasing prices for the moment.

Mr. WOODWORTH. Presently there is no incentive for the trade to maintain inventories because their exports must come out of the CCC stocks. Consequently there is not the broad demand for production this year. If the private trade is permitted to go in the free market and supply the export, then they will become buyers of the present production.

Mr. WHITTEN. That situation comes from the fact CCC stocks will not be offered. I think the end result might come, but it would be because CCC stocks are not offered.

Mr. FARRINGTON. But there is no proposal that would prevent our grain stocks of the United States being available at all times at competitive prices. This program goes the other way and says it wili be available always at competitive prices.

Mr. WHITTEN. As long as CCC has stocks, Congress is in a position to demand that they keep them flowing to retain our share of the market.

Mr. HENDRICKSON. But you have to keep the competitor in mind. In the case of corn, certainly the domestic price of corn is such it will not permit the free flow of it into foreign trade. What we are saying is that the subsidy is essential. I say a subsidy is not dumping so long as that subsidy is arrived at by a competitive bid process, and that competitive bid has to make the corn available at exactly the same level as the price of the corn if it were wholly without the CCC inventory. The subsidy is absolutely essential in this field.

Mr. HORAN. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. HENDRICKSON. As I said earlier, so far as this is a system that we are talking about that is grafted on to the trunk that we call the farm program, no matter what that trunk consists of this is the method of dealing with the commodity once it is acquired. It has nothing to do with the price support or anything else. This is intended to carry

out the original theory of the CCC, which was to use the private trade, which includes the cooperatives, to the largest practicable possible.

extent.

In our organizations, owned as they are by farmers, just as our competitors, we have no chance when it comes to competing with Government people who are sitting here merchandizing stocks of corn or wheat or anything else. You simply cannot compete with the Government, and that is one of the fundamental things I learned when I was about 10 years old.

Mr. WHITTEN. I can appreciate the fact you would not feel this is a subsidy. I am disturbed by anything that is designated as a

"subsidy".

Mr. HENDRICKSON. I do not like the word.

Mr. WHITTEN. Unless there are further questions I wish to thank you gentlemen for coming here. We are glad to have this discussion, not that there is anything that we can do one way or another except to express our views. My own view at the moment would be that by all means we must maintain a program of making available to the people of the world our CCC supplies on an orderly basis. How often you should and whether you can carry another program along with it, I think it is highly possible that you can. I have asked the Department to come in here tomorrow afternoon to discuss the possibility of having the two programs at once.

Thank you, gentlemen.

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE

WITNESSES

DR. LEONARD SMITH, DIVISION UTILIZATION RESEARCH, NA-
TIONAL COTTON COUNCIL OF AMERICA

J. BANKS YOUNG, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE
ROBERT H. COKER, ADVISER TO THE BOARD

Mr. WHITTEN. We are pleased to have with us today Mr. Banks Young, a representative of the National Cotton Council of America, and also Mr. Coker, who is interested in certain phases of agriculture, too. We will be glad for you gentlemen to appear in the order that you would like and in such way as you would like.

STATEMENT OF J. BANKS YOUNG

Mr. YOUNG. My name is J. Banks Young. I am Washington representative of the National Cotton Council of America, which has its headquarters in Memphis, Tenn. The council is the overall organization of the raw-cotton industry. Its membership is composed of cotton producers, ginners, warehousemen, merchants, spinners, and cottonseed crushers.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we appreciate the opportunity of appearing before you to present the views of the cotton industry on the urgent need for additional research and education funds.

Three years ago the Cotton Council, along with a group of farm and commodity organizations interested in agricultural research and education, adopted a plan designed to give an adequate program in

this field. It provided for an annual increase in appropriations for each of the 5 subsequent years of $24 million: $12 million would be used for research by the Department of Agriculture, $6 million by the State experiment stations, and $6 million for cooperative extension work to disseminate research results to farmers. Although substantial progress has been made toward achieving this plan, appropriations have not kept up with the schedule.

We urge that the committee approve an increase above the 1958 fiscal year in the amount of $45 million. Of this $20 million would be for USDA, $122 million for State experiment stations, and $121⁄2 million for cooperative extension work. These are the amounts necessary to put us back on schedule.

When the plan was adopted we had not expected that the increased funds made available would coincide precisely with the schedule for each year. Last year was an economy year and we fell badly behind. This year seems to be a pump priming year. We do not, in any respect, want to put research in the pump priming category. It is the soundest expenditure of public funds. It is an investment. Nevertheless, additional Federal expenditures for research will increase employment, and in that sense will work toward the objective of the administration and some segments of the Congress, to reverse the current trend in our national economy. It is an opportune time, therefore, to catch up on our research program.

In the past few years we have justified our requests by showing what research has done for agriculture generally and pointing out some of the opportunities in the overall agricultural field. Today our statement will be confined to cotton.

At no time in recent history has cotton faced a crisis as severe as it does today. For the most part, the trouble stems directly from the inability of cotton to meet its price competition. Rayon, cotton's largest and most aggressive single competitor, has a competitive price advantage of 8 to 12 cents per pound. Domestic consumption of cotton, which was over 9 million bales as recently as 1955-1956, is down to 8 million bales this season.

The export market is the only bright spot in the present picture. As the chairman well knows, this was brought about by making United States cotton available in foreign markets at prices competitive with foreign growths. This season, with cotton priced competitively with foreign cotton, we will ship abroad about 534 million bales. Significantly, this compares with only 24 million bales just 2 years ago, when we were out of line on price.

To meet price competition in the United States and to continue to do so abroad, we simply must reduce the cost of producing and processing cotton. There is only one way to do it. That is through a greatly expanded research program.

The President's budget very properly includes an increase for utilization research. We heartily concur in the need for these funds, for cotton has many problems in this field that only research can solve. But we were most disappointed that the President's budget recommended no increase for production research. On the contrary it provided for some actual reductions. This certainly does not make for a balanced research program, insofar as cotton is concerned.

Our

greatest opportunity for reducing costs and meeting our competition lies in the field of production research.

We are convinced that research is the main answer to the question of cotton meeting its competition. We can regain lost markets and develop new ones through research aimed at cutting costs, and costs must be cut before price competition can be fully met. May we mention four illustrations of what can be done to reduce costs substantially through research.

The first is to learn how to cut down on boll shedding. On the average more than one half of the fruiting forms are lost by shedding. To reduce the shedding by only 50 percent would increase yields per acre by 50 percent and increase farm income about one half billion dollars annually at present prices. We need to know a lot more about the physiology of the cotton plant and its relationship to soil, plant food, water, etc., in order to accomplish this for cotton. Although not simple, it is not an impossible task.

The next is to learn how to control weeds effectively. Farmers spend, on the average, about $20 per acre, each year, to control weeds. This amounts to about one-third of a billion dollars at the level of acreage permitted under the national allotment. The development of a simple, effective method for controlling weeds would save most of this sum.

The third is insect control. Each year 1 bale in 7 is lost to insects— an average loss of about $300 million.

A partial solution of these 3 problems alone could reduce the cost of producing cotton by at least 10 cents a pound.

If to this we could add an adequate quality-evaluation research program, to enable spinners and farmers to set a true spinning value on cotton, the cotton industry would have solved its most pressing problems in production.

We would make special mention, also, of one activity in market research. The consumer and industry surveys of the USDA are extensively used by our industry to guide research and promotion programs. They make an important contribution, and constitute one of the most useful phases of the AMS market research program.

Mr. Chairman, we have used these four problems as examples. Mr. Robert R. Coker has given a great deal of attention to one part of one of these problems. It is the boll weevil. He will give you information as to what the situation is researchwise and what might be expected if we could effectively and efficiently cope with this pest.

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Coker, we will be glad to hear from you, sir. STATEMENT OF ROBERT R. COKER CONCERNING COTTON BOLL WEEVIL

Mr. COKER. Chairman Whitten and members of the Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee, my name is Robert R. Coker, farmer and seed breeder of Hartsville, S. C. I am appearing before you in my capacity as adviser to the board of the National Cotton Council of America to present certain facts in support of a request for a substantial increase in Federal funds for urgently needed research on the problem of the cotton boll weevil.

1 President, Coker's Pedigreed Seed Co., Hartsville, S. C., and adviser to the board, National Cotton Council of America. Presented to Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., March 19, 1958.

For the benefit of members of the committee who are not familiar with this insect pest, it will be of interest for them to know that the first home of the cotton boll weevil was undoubtedly in the plateau region of Mexico or Central America. Before 1892 it had spread throughout the larger portion of Mexico. It occurs southward to Guatemala and Costa Rica, and in the east half of Cuba. About 1892 it crossed the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Tex., and entered United States territory. By 1894 it had spread to half a dozen counties in southern Texas, and since has extended its range annually until in 1928 almost all of the important cotton-producing sections except the western irrigated areas had become infested. Attached to this statement is a map showing the area of the Cotton Belt which is affected by this insect pest comprising, based on the 1957 planted acreage, approximately 10 million acres of cotton, producing some 7 million bales of cotton.

Due to the competitive and economic factors which we are now faced with, it seems that it is more imperative than ever that we do everything possible to reduce the cost of growing cotton, and the leadership of the United States cotton industry has recognized the important of effect of the boll weevil on cotton costs in the following resolution which was unanimously passed at the annual meeting of the National Cotton Council in Phoenix, Ariz., in January of this year. I quote:

That the National Cotton Council recognize that the cotton boll weevil is the No. 1 enemy of efficient cotton production in large and important areas of the United States Cotton Belt, and is taking an annual toll of tens of thousands of bales of cotton and of many millions of dollars, and that, in recognition of this, the council pledge its best and most vigorous efforts to obtain fully adequate research funds and research effort aimed at eliminating the cotton boll weevil as a threat to the United States cotton crop at the earliest possible time.

Also, the South Carolina Farm Bureau, at its 1957 annual meeting, recognized the seriousness of the boll-weevil problem with the following resolution:

Since the Southeast is at a competitive disadvantage in cotton production largely due to the boll-weevil losses, we urge the United States Department of Agriculture to intensify its efforts in cotton insect control with the aim of eliminating boll weevil as a major cotton problem.

Official figures which have been compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture beginning with 1909 to 1954 give the percentage of cotton reduction from full yield per acre from bollweevil damage. This is made up in the form of a table, giving percentage of loss by years in individual States. During the 15-year period from 1940 through 1954, based on the percentage of loss in each State, the boll weevil has destroyed a total of 13,764,706 bales of cotton and 5,802,532 tons of cottonseed, valued at $2,257,147,000. For the 4 principal cotton-producing States of the Southeast, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, the average annual loss during the 1940-54 period has been 13.8 percent of the total crop, which amounts to 5,247,000 bales of cotton and 2,160,000 tons of seed, valued at $862 million. This represents approximately 38 percent of the loss which the boll weevil caused during this 15-year period throughout the entire 13 cotton States where boll weevil is found. South Carolina's loss is shown to be 1,220,000 bales of cotton and 510,000 tons of seed, valued at $201,948,000. The loss for the

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