which have an acre, 28,000 bases which fall between 1.1 acres and 1.5 acres, and then a further 28,000 bases which fall between 1.6 acres and 2.5 acres. Mr. BURNSIDE. That is right. Mr. WATTS. My question to you is, if it is necessary that the Department of Agriculture should reduce the production of burley tobacco 50 percent and nobody below seven-tenths could be cut, it would necessarily mean that those above seven-tenths would have to take a cut of approximately 65 percent in order to get a 50 percent overall cut. Do you follow me on that? Mr. BURNSIDE. Yes. Mr. WATTS. That is approximately what I think it would be. Do you agree with that? Mr. BURNSIDE. There is a possibility. We might even have some other troubles which might come in to reduce it. Here is the thing I am faced with. I do not want to put my farmers on relief in West Virginia. Mr. WATTS. Mr. Burnside, I think you are faced with the same thing that all of us are faced with. If you go home to your district or I go to mine or Mr. Polk goes to his or my good friend over here goes to his, and talks about a cut in tobacco bases, he might as well get ready to be tarred and feathered and rode on a rail, no matter whether the base is one-tenth or ten-tenths or whether it is 1 acre or an acre and a half or 2 acres. When he goes home and talks about cutting tobacco bases, he is in serious trouble, I don't care where he comes from. Mr. BURNSIDE. I realize the problem the gentleman from Kentucky has. He has worked very, very hard to keep this acreage up for his farmers down there. He is to be commended for the way in which he has fought for them. Mr. WATTS. The point I was trying to make with you is that practically all the bases are faced with a 65 percent cut. It may be 60. I do not know, but you know good and well and would agree with me that if you must have a 50 percent overall cut and there are twohundred-some-odd thousand which are not taking any share of the cut, then the percentage of the cut will be heavier on the other part, is that right? Mr. BURNSIDE. That is true. But the ones in the big brackets can afford it better than the ones with the small acreage. Mr. WATTS. Would you answer my question? Mr. BURNSIDE. Yes. Mr. WATTS. Whether it would be 60 or 65 percent, I do not know. The 10 in the United States you were talking about would be clear out of the picture. The 40 that you were talking about would be clear out of the picture. The highest base that would be left would be about 50 acres. I do not know what the highest base is. This table says 100 and over. I assume from their putting the words "and over" there, a few go over 100. Mr. BURNSIDE. Yes. Mr. WATTS. I understand the largest bases in the country are in Missouri. I am sure Congressman Hull will be interested in that. Mr. HULL. There is a reason for that, too, I think. Mr. WATTS. You realize that these cuts are inevitable, do you not? Mr. BURNSIDE. I think they must be, that is true. Mr. WATTS. If the minimum is retained, it will be to the tune of about 65 percent, between 60 and 65 percent, on those on an unprotected basis. Understand, I suspect I have in my district more small bases than you have. Mr. BURNSIDE. I have about 4,000 farmers below seven-tenths acre. Mrs. WATTS. I am sure there are 4,000 minimum bases in my district. I have more bases, all told, than you have. I am just as disturbed about them as you are. But the question which bothers me is this: If a fellow has 2 acres of tobacco, is it fair automatically to reduce him to seven-tenths of an acre and let his neighbor on the other side, who has seven-tenths, not suffer any reduction whatsoever? I realize there is a point beyond which you cannot reduce the tobacco base and hope to have any profit or any incentive to grow it at all. I am not unmindful of that at all. You picked out a few isolated places of people who have big bases, and I do not blame you-you are trying to make a point. But the bulk of those bases fall within an acre and a half to 22 acres. If they are faced with a 50 or 60 percent cut, do you not in all fairness feel that the fellow with seven-tenths ought to take an infinitesimal part of the licking that the other fellows are going to be compelled to take? Mr. BURNSIDE. Mr. Chairman, when you are taking shoes away from a farmer's children-and I mean that in all seriousness, because I have seen it-I cannot see a further cut. These are all little farmers, not big ones. If they were my big farmers along the Ohio River who are well off, fine people, they can stand it, but these up in the mountain valleys cannot produce anything else, Mr. Chairman. They cannot produce corn. You have seen them when they tried to plant it, and it looks as if they have to hold on to something to plant corn on the side of those mountains in those tiny valleys. It really is heart rending. Mr. WATTS. I realize that. Also, I want to look at this thing from the standpoint of fairness, continuation of the program, and some equitable distribution. I am sympathetic with small growers the same as you are. I have more of them than you have, I am sure. I realize, as I said before, that there is some point beyond which you cannot reduce. My question is, Can we have a program if everybody gets within the seven-tenths category? Mr. BURNSIDE. Congressman Watts, perhaps I can answer it in this way. It reminds me a whole lot of a gentleman who came up here to testify, who paid his own expenses, who has 1.4 acres, who said "Cut mine and save those who need it. I can make a living. Cut mine._ _I see the suffering which will be entailed by these little fellows." He paid his own expenses. Mr. WATTS. You realize, Mr. Burnside, that many of these people with 2 acres have more than 1 tenant sharing in that tobacco, do you not? Mr. BURNSIDE. As a matter of fact, checking back on the acreage, I find that in the larger brackets they generally use 4 to 5 acres to a family, in many of them 3 or 4 acres to a family, because with modern methods a man can tend 3 or 4 acres. I find in checking back that there is a trend to cut fellows off the farm and, if they can, put more acreage on the family which will remain to handle tobacco. Mr. WATTS. I do not know where you got that information. The way farms are operated down in my country, a sizable farm of course cannot be operated on tobacco alone. Mr. BURNSIDE. That is right. Mr. WATTS. They must have some corn, hay, cattle, and they must have this and the other. Whatever the base might be on that farm, say it is 2 acres, the man has to have 2 or 3 tenants to operate the farm, and he must divide that base as small as it is among each of these tenants in order to keep those tenants on the farm. Mr. BURNSIDE. I realize that the gentleman is absolutely correct in many cases. Here is one other problem we have. We even have people within small towns who are growing tobacco in their backyards. A recommendation is made on that by the Eight-State Committee. Those are not farmers. Those fellows ought to be cut out. They are growing tobacco in small towns. I have seen it as I have gone through. They are not farmers. They are merely sponging on the farmers of America. Mr. WATTS. For the gentleman's information, I have introduced several pieces of legislation since this hearing began which attempt to deal with many of the problems set out in the eight-State agreement. It seems that the only thing which is bothering the committee is the minimum. The 65 percent cut is coming. I agree with you that it would be an extreme hardship to try to impose a 65-percent to 50-percent cut on the fellow who has seven-tenths acre of tobacco, but if you expect the farmers to go along with any sort of program, it is my thought that those fellows are going to have to make some infinitesimal, I will put it that way, gesture of willingness to do something to aid in the situa→ tion rather than to expect the entire cut to be borne by the acre man or the 1.5-acre man or the 2-acre or 2.5-acre man. When you get above that they are almost as scarce as rabbits are in comparison to the way rabbits were when I was a boy. I think you will have to look forward, at least I hope so, to the smaller farmers saying, "We are willing to share some little part of the burden. We don't expect 35 percent of the people to take all of the cut and do all the pumping to save the boat and let the other 65 percent of us be the first on the shore." It is my hope and I am sure the hope of other members of this committee that we can work out something which will help our tobacco growers, which will not hurt them, and take out such inequities as exist. It is my hope that all of the growers together will take a reasonable attitude toward this thing and not hurt anybody too much. Mr. BURNSIDE. That was our thought when we cut it from ninetenths to seven-tenths. We thought that would be the answer. The small ones have already taken about a 25-percent cut through that reduction from nine-tenths to seven-tenths. Mr. WATTS. You realize that during the time it went from ninetenths to seven-tenths the 1.5-acre man was taking a 35-percent cut when that bill was passed. I thank the gentleman. I know his interest. I know he has a problem. I think he knows that I have one. Mr. POLK. Mr. Bass? Mr. BASS. No questions. Mr. POLK. Thank you very much, Congressman Burnside, for the information you have given the committee, which will be very helpful to us. Our next witness is Congressman Natcher, of Kentucky. STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM H. NATCHER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY Mr. NATCHER. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the record, my name is William H. Natcher, Representative of the Second District of Kentucky. I sincerely appreciate this opportunity to discuss with you the problems facing growers of burley tobacco. On February 7, 8, and 9, Secretary of Agriculture Ezra T. Benson appeared before the House Subcommittee on Agricultural Appropriations of the Committee on Appropriations, and in discussing the present burley tobacco situation with him I found him to be sympathetic and anxious to work closely with the growers and people in the tobacco States on this problem. Clarence Miller and Walter Berger were present and offered constructive suggestions for the solution of some of our problems. Mr. Chairman, your committee, the Department of Agriculture, and the tobacco industry generally is to be commended for the dispatch with which you have gone into this problem. When burley tobacco is in trouble the Second District of Kentucky is in trouble. As pointed out by the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., in its March 7, 1955, issue: When burley tobacco is in trouble, Kentucky is in trouble. And at the moment burley tobacco is in trouble. The source of burley now on hand is equivalent to about a 31⁄2 years' supply. That is not as bad as it may sound. Under the price-support crop-control program which has been in effect for most of the last 20 years, the Federal Government has been performing a storage function for the tobacco trade which ordinarily it would perform itself. But it is true that we do have now a surplus of burley equal to about 1 year's supply. What is worse, we have on hand a lot of burley that is of low quality. It is high-nicotine tobacco that needs to be blended with much lower-nicotine leaf to make good smoking tobacco. The situation, however, is not yet so serious that it cannot be improved. The solution to the problem will be costly to Kentuckiana growers and as a result to all of Kentuckiana, but it need not be as costly to the community as many think at the moment. Because tobacco is held for several years before it is used, it will be possible to work off the surplus of lower-grade burley over the next few years if burley growers are willing to cooperate. What is needed in the next few years is the production of a series of high-quality burley crops. In fact, the need is for production of high-quality burley from now on out. Burley growers obviously have made a mistake in translating acreage controls into a demand for greater production per acre. For once, at least, the philosophy of growing "two blades of grass where only one grew before" has been proved wrong. Lower production per acre with increasing attention to quality-low-nicotine content and fine leaf-can be equated into higher incomes per acre than high yields from smaller allotments. The solution to the burley problem lies in the hands of burley growers themselves. The burley-control and price-support program grew out of the recognition on the part of burley growers for an orderly method of production and marketing. The present situation is nowhere near as serious as the one that brought about the program. Surely the commonsense that prevailed to provide that program will prevail again to save it. In spite of numerous acreage reductions during the past few years, we find that we are now faced with further acreage reduction for 1955 and 1956. The 1954 burley crop is in excess of the figure estimated last fall. Therefore, the supply picture has changed somewhat since the quotas for 1955 were announced. Our burley acreage allotments have been cut each year since 1952. We had a 10-percent cut from 1952 to 1953, 8 percent from 1953 to 1954, and 10 percent from 1954 to 1955. Today 64 percent of the allotments are down to seven-tenths of an acre or less. In my opinion, Mr. Chairman, time is of the essence, and immediate action is required. I should like to make the following suggestions: (1) Growers have made plans for the crop year of 1955. Therefore, they should be permitted to vote in referendum held in regular manner expressing their approval or disapproval of the action recommended by this committee, the Congress and the Department of Agriculture for the crop year of 1955. (2) Penalty on the marketing of excess tobacco be increased from 50 percent to 75 percent of the average market price during the previous year. (3) Act to be amended providing that any acreage of tobacco harvested in excess of the allotted acreage for any farm for any year shall not be considered in the establishment of the allotment for the farm in succeeding years. (4) Continue acreage controls and supplement these controls with poundage quota if practicable. (5) Amend the act to strengthen field administration generally protecting the interest of the honest, hardworking tobacco grower, and eliminate tobacco patches hidden in cornfields by Department of Agricultural aerial surveys of acreage allotments made under supervision of Federal employees. Federal supervision and control over destruction of excess tobacco and elimination of dishonest measurements of tobacco acreage. Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the members of this committee for this opportunity to appear before you and to discuss the problems confronting the burley tobacco growers of this country. I thank you. Mr. POLK. Thank you, Congressman Natcher. We are very happy to have your suggestions and recommendations. Our committee will give deep consideration to your suggestions on this very difficult problem. Are there any questions? Mr. WATTS. Mr. Chairman, I should just like to take this opportunity of welcoming my fine colleague before the committee. I know of his interest not only in this subject but any other subject which affects the welfare of his people and the country. It is a pleasure to have you here. I enjoyed your statement. We will do our best to work something out. Mr. NATCHER. Thank you, sir. |