frozen to death, and we had a National Guard helicopter and we had a high old time that day. Farmers were depressed and it was a very stark kind of horrible situation. But I haven't seen any helicopters fly this year, because the incrementalism of drought is something that doesn't attract a lot of attention. But I think that its implications for the future are far more serious. No one has alluded to the effect that it will have on business in South Dakota. And as lieutenant governor and speaking in behalf of the administration, we are very concerned about this, too, because our principal income in South Dakota-we don't have a State income tax-comes from sales tax; agriculture is our big thing. Let me give you an example of one business in Spink County. An implement dealer who I talked to yesterday before I got on the airplane, has an average gross income for the last 6 months, in selling implements and parts and servicing farmers, of $250,000 a month. That's his gross for his business; it is a substantial business, a new business, a good business. In June his gross income-it should be an abnormally high month, people are putting up hay, getting ready for harvest dropped to $52,000 in gross, 20 percent of what the last 6 months had been.

And that is felt in the automobile business, the stores up and down Main Street and if you don't think that is going to have terrible repercussions for us in South Dakota, well, you understand that, and I am sure that you do.

So I think that the point I want to make, we need the help-I think these hay transportation bills are good-what we do in South Dakota on our farm and every other farm is put up hay all summer. We are not concerned particularly about this week or next weekwe got burned-out grain to turn them into; we have had a little shower, the thing is greening up a little. We are concerned about next MarchFebruary and March. If we don't have enough hay to see this cowherd through to next year's pasture, we are going to liquidate it--we will have to. And we have to have some assurances that we can plan this thing that far ahead-and when you talk about quibbling over 8 or 9 days, or even 30 days, that simply isn't a realistic kind of discussion in the light of what needs to be done.

And we have to plan for the whole year.

Now, do farmers help themselves? Yes, they do. On our farm-and it is very, very typical-we have for years always put up more hay than we need; we always stay a year and a half ahead, and we always have those haystacks setting around. My dad always said that haythey turned kind of black, those haystacks, they look terrible, you know what I am talking about-we say it is just like money in the bank. I say it is better than money in the bank, because money in the bank with inflation nowadays isn't any good anyway. But hay appreciates in value and if you can have haystacks, I will take haystacks to money in our business any day. And we have been dipping into that reserve now for a couple of years, because the last 2 years have been dry. Well, there aren't any haystacks sitting around.

It is very, very crucial-and we are going to need some kind of help that is very extraordinary.

What I would suggest is a long-range kind of thing-and that is what you have to address yourself to, being in these responsible positions. I have presided over many senate committees in South Dakota,

I was a chairman of a senate committee there for 6 years and know a lot about what you have to put up with. But planning for the future is really what agriculture is all about. I simply cannot understand why within the Department of Agriculture we do not have a person or an agency that is designated to deal with agricultural emergencies. I call them emergencies instead of disasters because you have one of those somewhere every year-be it a horrible blizzard, be it a drought, be it an insect plague, be it a frost in Florida or somewhere.

And yet we always hear whether it is this agency involved, this agency involved, and this agency involved and I say that all the programs that you have are like having a million dollars in the bank and not knowing how to write a check. All the programs in the world, if they don't apply to a situation, aren't any good, because they don't apply. What you need is a block of money with the administrative flexibility to deal with an emergency like we are having now. And that isn't there-you have to pass all kinds of legislation; it's a very political year and, very frankly, we are not very optimistic about what might happen.

So in planning for the future I think that this insurance type of program that you talked about makes some sense. I think that one thing that this year points out, too, is the folly of fence row to fence row farming-and I don't want to get into that too much-but there is no reserve and there should be. We ought to protect that resource; there ought to be some grass growing normally there that we could cut in an emergency situation, like we did in 1967. That bailed us out at that time. And, of course, it dramatizes the urgency and need for water development, and the irrigation interest in our part of the country is just out of this world-and I don't want to get into that really, in depth, because that is another whole subject.

But Secretary Duxbury and Mr. Radcliffe will go over some things that they have worked on-and I have read their statements, and I think that I endorse them wholeheartedly. Further I would like to say that people like Senator McGovern have a handle on this thing; they have been out there. Senator Humphrey and I appeared on a program together at Dolan 2 weeks ago Saturday night-he went right by my farm on Highway 37 there north of Huron, S. Dak.-and he knows what it looks like. So you have people that have been there. Senator Mondale and Senator Abourezk have been there, so I don't have to go over and dramatize how horrible the countryside looks. But I think you just have to trust their leadership in this, that when they say we need help, extraordinary kind of help to maintain these livestock herds which is the backbone of our economy in South Dakota, believe them and help them develop a program that will do that. Don't worry about overhelping, because most farmers-I will agree with you, Senator-really try to help themselves, and we have always done that. We have our own reserves of oats and hay, as I mentioned. But because we have been in this situation now-it is about the third year, and it is getting progressively worse-we have depleted our own reserves, and we don't really know where we are going to go from here.

And it is true that some of the histories of the past live to haunt us a little bit, and we are kind of embarrassed about some of those things, too.

Senator DOLE. They do it every time we have a program.

Mr. WOLLMAN. Well, not if it was properly administered-and I could get into that, and I won't, because it would take too long. A lot of it is in the administration of the program and the application of it rather than the idea of it, you see, and that needs some work.

So I would be willing to respond to some questions. I think that some of the specific recommendations that these other gentlemen have in their statements would be a help to you-and I know that you will be receptive to our problem. It is very grave.

Senator HUDDLESTON. Do the members prefer to go ahead and hear Mr. Duxbury first? Go ahead.

Mr. DUXBURY. Thank you, Senator, and other members of the committee. On behalf of the farm families that we represent in South Dakota, many of them have been in disaster-designated areas for the past 4 years. As Harvey mentioned, with his farm being in that area-my family farm is also in that area-this past week, for example, we received an inch and three quarters rain. That is the first rain of over half an inch that we received this season.

But in our area the farmers are out for a second try. They have planned a lot of sorghum, a lot of sudan grasses last week. They are making every effort they can to help themselves. We have been working very closely with the extension service and holding meetings throughout the State to look at different alternatives, different cropping programs; as we passed the period that we could plant corn for silage, to look at the different sorghums, the 90-day sorghums, the 60-day sorghums, as the drought prolongs-different types of sudan grass. Much of the oats that is in our area is only 8 or 10 inches high and very thin stand-maybe it will yield 500 to 1,000 pounds per acre, but that is being mowed, it's being put up, and they are going back in there and going to try to plant some sudan grass to give some supplemental pasturage.

So I can assure you that the farmers are trying to help themselves. We have some areas that are worse than others. Bill Gallagher, a farmer-rancher in the east of Pierre, in Hyde County, is in the audience today; he is in one of the hardest hit areas in the State; his farm hasn't had an inch and a half of rain this year; he hasn't a had normal crop for 3 or 4 years. He has a wheat field that I drive past several times a week; there is 140 or 150 acres in that field, and just zero production. And he told me this morning that next week he will start selling some of his herd.

Our auction markets have been running at capacity throughout the summer in the drought area. To start with, the farmers were selling off any yearling cattle that they had intended to keep; any of the poor-producing cows. Then they started into reducing their herds, some of their foundation stock. There are counties where 10 to 20 percent of the herds have disappeared and up to 50 percent of the beef herds have been sold.

Senator McGOVERN. What has that done to the cattle price?

Mr. DUXBURY. The cow market, I would say, has gone down $4 to $5 a hundred from what it was earlier in the spring. There was a time there in March or April where many of the beef cows that were going to market were bringing $30 per hundredweight. This last week I stopped at a sale for a little while and it took a good cow to

bring over 26¢ a pound. There were a few big high-quality cows, excellent weighing conditions, that were bringing up into the 30's, but, still a lot of those cows only bring in 26¢. The better calves that were sold were weighing 150 to 200 pounds, and they were bringing— just the top end of them-from $85 to $100 or $110 apiece.

So the cow price stayed relatively good, but the sad part about that is, when they were selling this calf for $85 to $100 a head, this is the calf that in just 2 or 3 months should be bringing $150 to $200, and hopefully kept into the winter and bring $200 or $250, as well as some of the foundation stock for the next year.

So it definitely is going to have an effect, not only this year, but next year as well. I think that is a fact that we should keep in mind, that sales receipts in cattle are going to be fairly high, but a lot of those cattle that are being sold should be remaining in the inventorythey are breeding stock that should not be sold.

And I also could say that in our State I think in most counties 100 percent of the farms have been affected to some extent. Compounding the hardships of the drought, the early frosts destroyed 75 to 90 percent of our alfalfa crop in the State. And this is the thing that is going to make it tough as far as putting together a winter feed supply. But in the face of all of this, we do have to face realism-very simply we are hopeful that our farmer-ranch families can remain in business and that they can meet their financial obligations, and we are hoping that we can maintain most of the nucleus of our foundation herds.

We think these are simple goals, but our people are independent, they are dedicated, they are willing really to redo their programs, make every effort they can to stay in business. But we would like to see our Federal agencies coordinate existing programs in support of these goals, and we would like to see what we would think would be some commonsense changes in the procedures and regulations of these programs; for example, the hay transportation assistance program which has been mentioned here. That is not meeting the emergency requirements of especially the dairymen in our really hard-hit areas that are trying to stay in business, and, as I said before, any shower that comes along, they will be planting some supplemental crops, but right now they need some emergency help.

Senator HUDDLESTON. Has the feed supply available for dairy farmers affected the production?

Mr. DUXBURY. I am sure it has affected the individual herd production of

Senator HUDDLESTON. It would, I am sure, over an extended period of time.

Mr. DUXBURY. Over an extended period of time. And I am sure that is affecting production of herds right now.

So along this line, I think that some changes in the emergency hay program would be an immediate step; also in the crop disaster program, I think we have missed the opportunity here to fully utilize them of our drought fields of wheat and barley. To me, if a farmer sees any potential in wheat in our area, of that field making 6 to 10 bushels per acre-he is going to try to harvest that, because it is not going to yield much hay, 500 pounds, 750 pounds, per acre probably. But if he thinks that wheat would make 6 bushels an acre or more than $20 per acre, he would leave that and try to harvest it. If he has

to lose his disaster payment and wait until that field can be evaluated with a zero yield, he is going to lose part of what feed value he has in that crop.

As far as the Farmers Home Administration programs, they do have some programs that can be of assistance. I think we should be sure that those programs are adequately funded, so that when the farmer makes application-shorten the procedure and turnaround time in those programs; and in that area I would strongly recommend that the production loss loan program, that county averages on the farm for 5 normal years be used rather than the individual farm 5-year record.

Senator McGoVERN. Mr. Duxbury, on this point you made about farmers needing a little more flexibility in planning alternative uses of the land without losing the possibility of a zero-based disaster designation-it is my understanding that the Department does permit a farmer to use three-fourths of the land, as long as he keeps a fourth of it for evaluation purposes. Is that the way it operates?

Mr. DUXBURY. That is my understanding. Perhaps they could even leave less than a fourth if they could leave strips and things like this. But, as you know, it is very difficult to fence off part of a field or an area to leave for a check crop-it involves-just the fencing cost would prohibit using that program, if you were going to pasture that. Mr. WOLLMAN. It really works two ways. You can have an appraisal done, as I had done said I want this field appraised; and the appraiser comes and he says this is 1.6 bushels; I turn the cattle out on it, so that is what is going to be subtracted from my base. I had a field that was appraised at 6 bushels; I didn't really know if he was all that accurate or not; so I am going to leave it and harvest it. I would rather not, because I am going to go out there with a combine with the cutter bar running on the ground and scooping up rocks and dirt and do a whole lot of damage. I think that anything that is that far gone, you know, even at this point-just zero it out and let me do what I want to with it, and don't, you know, penalize me for trying to help myself.

Senator HUDDLESTON. That is what Senator Abourezk was suggesting.

Mr. WOLLMAN. I think that is a good point. I think that could be done administratively. No one is going to get rich on this

Senator HUDDLESTON. If these weather conditions continue, you might with 6 bushels end up with that.

Mr. WOLLMAN. So you can do it two ways. You can harvest it, put it in a bin, improve your production that way, or trust the appraiser's assessment of it.

Senator HUDDLESTON. Do you have further comments?

Mr. DUXBURY. There are some other areas, but I think they will be covered in some of the other programs that we support. Senator McGovern listed a number of the programs in his last newsletter, which I have entered in my testimony.* And in our contact with the farmers in the area, I think there is public support for many of those programs.

*See p. 90 for the prepared statement of Mr. Duxbury.