Show WALTER SHEAD SHE AD drop seen in farm prices C congressional congressional ON GRESSIONAL mail today from rural areas and small towns of the country points to the drop in farm prices as the only break in the inflationary spiral generally these letters say that while the farmers are willing to take a cut from the abnormally high farm prices something should be done to relieve them of the brunt of the entire price cut that is the things the farmer must buy should be cut proportionately insofar as this reporter can find out however economists here do not look for much of a letdown in prices for several months As for farm prices themselves the consensus is that they will go down gradually until they reach the parity floor when the government will have to step into the picture and begin buying to maintain the 90 per cent of parity program secretary of agriculture anderson has temporarily withdrawn from the grain buying picture but he still has about million bushels of wheat to buy to meet the governments export commitments when he does step back into the grain market probably about april 1 he will be buying to support farm prices as well as to meet overseas commitments As it now looks the farm income for 1948 likely will be some 16 per cent under the 1947 total or about equal to the 1946 income which was a record high until topped by 1947 in the meantime not many farmers were hurt by the spectacular grain drop most of them having sold before the crash |