AGRICULTURE: Toward Less Control

Sternly trying not to look over his shoulder at political hobgoblins, Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson last week announced that a ruling known as “total acreage allotment” would be abolished. Farmers and farm-bloc Congressmen have complained more loudly about it than about flexible price supports.

Under “total acreage allotment,” a farmer receiving supports for major crops (wheat, cotton, corn, peanuts, tobacco) had to restrict his total planted acreage to a Government quota and could not plant his excess land to anything but hay and pasturage. Now he can plant it to anything he pleases, except the major crops, potatoes and a small list of commercial vegetables. Benson expected that most of the decontrolled acreage would be planted to feed grains and forage crops, which farmers badly need, especially in areas hit by drought and heat.

Said Benson: “There is going to be greater emphasis placed upon price and less on controls as a means of adjusting production … I have never liked total acreage allotments … I said so [when the allotment program was announced] in June.”

Benson also announced:

¶The support price for 1955 wheat will be 82½% of parity (the minimum provided by law). This will mean $2.06 per bushel, as against the $2.24 that farmers are now getting under 90% support.

¶Of the 1955 crops, 400 million bushels of wheat and 1,000,000 bales of cotton will be set aside (i.e., bought and stored by the Government) for stockpiling and foreign relief.

¶Five Southern states (Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina) are designated drought disaster areas. Farmers in those states will get increased subsidies for purchase of Government-owned feed for livestock.

¶Price-support operations for fiscal 1954 caused the Government a loss of $419 million—a record high.