The CHAIRMAN. I would like to get this into the record here. Mr. Hope raised the question of placing a limitation upon the funds provided for in section 10 (a), while he stated that he felt the Department should have some latitude, and I agree with that, but I was wondering whether, if a limitation is written into the bill of, say, 40 or 50 percent, the limitation should contain language giving the Secretary the right to exceed that, in the event this committee appointed to advise with him thought it should be exceeded. That would take care of the situation, in my opinion. I just bring that up at this point for your consideration. Mr. PACE. Doctor, let me give you an illustration, which I think is very clear-cut, on the importance of the Department advancing quick freezing. Take peaches, for example. I don't know whether you know it or not, but the peach grower makes his money about once every 5 or 10 years, and that is when he happens to have a short crop and a high price. Usually when he has a normal crop he loses money, be-, cause, as you know, the peach must be picked, must be handled just right and handled immediately, or it is gone. How fine it would be if it were possible to market the better peaches, we will say, and have quick-freezing facilities in every part of the Peach Belt, where the surplus peaches could be ground into pulp, quickly frozen and preserved for marketing throughout the year. Then the better peaches during the peach season would bring a fair price, and the surplus peaches throughout the year would bring a fair price. Mr. LAMBERT. I think that is a very important problem for many of the fruits, and one that is going to receive increasingly more attention from research. It is going to take research on many angles. It is going to take research and engineering to find methods of storage. It is going to take research into the chemistry and the food value of those products. We have got to meet those problems. Mr. PACE. Another point in this bill also is the value of promoting diversification of crops. I am impressed with the thought that, certainly in my section of the country, maybe throughout the country, there are great possibilities in the lowly sweetpotato, both as a food and as a feed. I have a farmer in my district, Mr. Chairman, who last year produced 547 bushels of sweet potatoes on 1 acre of ground, and we know that, properly dehydrated, the sweetpotato is one of the finest animal feeds you can get. So it is important from the standpoint of diversification that we expand the process of dehydration in order that there may be some diversification away from cotton, away from other commodities, away from wheat, in order that these other crops may be made profitable and commercially attractive. Is that contemplated under the bill? Mr. LAMBERT. Yes, that would certainly be one of the things to be done. There certainly would be great latitude to do that sort of work under this bill. You are probably familiar with the work that has been done at the southern regional laboratory on finding outlets for sweet potatoes-that big plant recently developed in Florida, as you know. Mr. PACE. Yes. I am also familiar with the activities of many private agencies, many railroad agricultural departments, and I am delighted that in this bill authority is granted to the Secretary of Agriculture to take advantage of private agencies that have a peculiar set-up to carry on these experiments. I think that in the past there definitely has been a feeling of jealousy, or something akin to jealousy, between Government experiment efforts and private efforts, and the time has come when they should be brought together under one general program to advance the cause of agriculture. Do you agree with that? Mr. LAMBERT. Yes; we have given that a great deal of consideration, and there are places where that would be tremendously helpful. Mr. PACE. A great corporation has got a large group of men, and sometimes it gets the best men, and if they can do a job there should be no reason why they should not be employed to do it. Mr. LAMBERT. It will be supplemental to the over-all activity. The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Lambert, I would like for you to insert in the record at this point the amount expended by the Government and the State agencies in agricultural research work, and the amount expended by industry in similar work. I think it would be very enlightening to show that. We have practically not made a start in research with respect to agriculture, whereas industry is years ahead of us. Mr. LAMBERT. May I ask for my own clarification: you are thinking of industry as it relates to agriculture? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; not only as it relates to agriculture, but research that is being carried on by industry in other fields not with respect to agriculture. I just want to show that agriculture, practically speaking, has had no research work, while industry has for years been spending millions on research work. The result is that industry has been able to produce cheaper goods and with more efficiency and has found a lot of new uses for things. (The following statements were submitted by the Department of Agriculture :) Hon. JOHN W. FLANNAGAN, Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, House of Representatives. DEAR MR. FLANNAGAN: In accordance with your request at the hearings on H. R. 6548 on June 13, I am transmitting herewith a table showing estimated Federal expenditures for research in the fiscal year 1946 by the United States Department of Agriculture, including grants to the States and Territories; non-Federal funds available to State and Territorial experiment stations for the fiscal year 1945; and estimated expenditures in 1940 for research by industry, research institutes, and colleges and universities, excluive of Federal grants for research by the agricultural experiment stations. The estimates of research expenditures by the last-mentioned groups were obtained from the report by Dr. Vannevar Bush, entitled "Science, the Endless Frontier." These constitute, we believe, the most authoritative estimates for such expenditures. No estimates are available for industry after 1940. Due to the tremendous expansion of war research, such expenditures by industry in 1944 probably were much greater than in 1940. Research expenditures by governmental agencies also were greatly increased during the war. In 1944 such agencies, according to Dr. Bush's report, expended $719,813,000. We lso are enclosing a table taken from the 1947 hearings before the House subcommittee on the agricultural appropriation bill which shows expenditures for research by the various agencies of the Deparment of Agriculture since 1932; a tabulation showing non-Federal funds available to State and Terri torial agricultural experiment stations, fiscal years 1932-45, inclusive; and a copy of the table from which we obtained our figures for industrial research expenditures. Sincerely yours, Estimated expenditures for research Estimated obligations, fiscal year 1946, for research by the U. S. N. E. DODD, Secretary. Total estimated obligations from appropriation to the U. S. Non-Federal funds available to State and Territorial experiment stations, fiscal year 1945‒‒‒‒‒ Estimated expenditures for research in 1940 by the following:1 Industry Research institutes (industrial and endowed). $24, 716, 000 7, 206, 000 31, 922, 000 234, 000, 000 10, 659, 000 24, 601, 000 Total -- 269, 260, 000 • 1 Figures from Science, the Endless Frontier, a report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director, OSRD, p. 80. = Non-Federal funds available to the State and Territorial agricultural experiment stations, fiscal years 1932-1945 21,080, 978 = 14, 081, 508. 61 14, 367, 998. 61 15, 571, 050. 29 15, 738, 633. 91 17, 277, 666. 48 19, 941, 454. 96 21, 080, 978. 67 TABLE 11.-Estimated obligations for research, regular funds, fiscal years 1932-46, and Budget estimates for 1947 1 [In thousands of dollars] 16, 006 13, 016 11,087 11,392 14,355 16,376 18, 010 23, 303 22, 105 21, 392 21,958 20, 365 19, 279 20, 166 24,716 1 Amounts adjusted annually for changes in organization structures, necessitating rough approximations in making certain past year adjustments for comparability. 2 For comparability with 1947 estimates, amounts in these columns exclude estimated obligations for overtime pay, amounting in total (thousands of dollars) to $1,409 in 1943! Amounts prior to 1942 relate solely to the Plant Industry Experiment Farm and the Beltsville Research Center; prior to 1936, to the Plant Industry Experiment Farm only. TABLE 11.-Estimated obligations for research, regular funds, fiscal years 1932-46, and Budget estimates for 1947-Continued [In thousands of dollars] Prepared by Office of Budget and Finance, Division of Estimates and Allotments, Estimates Section, Jan. 4, 1946. 1942 1943 6, 541 6,849 6, 863 6,926 6, 926 29, 844 28, 954 28, 255 28,884 27,291 |