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Show Aitisncan Farm Fcr Agriculture The program for agrkulture dc-vej;:ecl dc-vej;:ecl by the American Farm Bureau Federation was recently presented to th House Subcommittee Subcom-mittee on Agricultural Aprcpia-tioii; Aprcpia-tioii; by Farm Bureau prciiwrtt Edward A. O'Neil. Farm Bureau officials were given a full three day hea'ing in which to present tlitir views. Basic points in the proposals made include; (1) Mandatory Man-datory commodity loans for all basic commodities with loan rates fixed at 85 percent of parity whenever when-ever farmers reduce production to the amount currently needed for domestic consumption and exports. (2) AAA amendments which will assure equitable acreage allotments to all producers and a total production pro-duction not in excess of current coiumption and exports in. years of normal yields; (3) a continuation continua-tion of such conservation and parity par-ity payments as maye bj necessary neces-sary to bridge the gap between the price received in the market place or through loan rate and full parity; (4) export payments to keep American products in a competitive com-petitive position on the w'orld market. In summarizing the advantages of the Farm Bureau plan Mr. O'Neil said that under his plan "it would cost the Government $512,000,000 to assure farmers an income goal of $3,377,000,000 for the five basic commodities, where-a,s where-a,s under the present farm program, pro-gram, it would cost the Government Govern-ment $1,1444,000,000 to assure farmers the same income goal." Indicative of organized agriculture's agri-culture's opportunity to be heard was the statement of Chairman Cannon a tthe committee hearings: hear-ings: "We must have organized agriculture. It is Impossible for us to do anything in Congress unless we have someone who can speak with authority as the represent-1 atives of the agriculture of the nation. I will say that, so far, as I can see now, the American Farm Bureau Federation represents i our only hope of uniting the far- j mers of the whole country into , an effective and aggressive farm organization. For that reason, we welcome you gentlemen here particularly. par-ticularly. We believe you represent, repre-sent, as you say and, in fact we know you represent and speak for the greatest number of farmers in the United States. On that account, ac-count, we know that your statements state-ments should carry particular weight." |