I did I certainly would not be here making statements such as I am making.

Last year the farmers of the Nation produced approximately 111⁄2 million acres of soybeans. The goals have already been announced by the Agricultural Department for 1944, and we are being asked in 1944 to produce 14,000,000 acres of soybeans. That is an increase of about 21 percent.

In my own State, the increase asked for is approximately 48 percent. If we meet the goal set on, we are going to have to produce pretty nearly half again more soybeans than we produced in 1943. We can only do this at the expense of some other crop. We do not have new areas that can be thrown into production without curtailing something else.

It was a job this last year, in order to get our farmers to produce 1112 million acres. It is going to be a tougher job this next year to get them to produce the 14,000,000 acres.

We are anxious about this, that after we have encouraged our neighbors and friends to increase their soybean acreage, that they do have a market for the soybean oil which will be produced. We of the American Soybean Association are in favor of the repealing of excise taxes on soybean oil only when that margaine is produced from domestically produced fats and oils. We want to make that clear. And we think that we are going to have an opportunity to dispose of our soybean oil through that outlet.

As I see this whole thing, it is not a matter of sectionalism. It is not a matter of certain interests in the South fighting certain interests in the North. We farmers are together on this thing. We have got a certain product to dispose of and we want to get that product disposed of to the American people and we do not want to have to use the oils that in the past have been imported from the tropics in this market. We want to supply it ourselves.

That concludes the statement I have, gentlemen. I trust I have been under the 15 minutes.

Mr. KLEBERG. Yes, sir; you have 4 minutes left.

Are there any questions, gentlemen?

Mr. GILCHRIST. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KLEBERG. Mr. Gilchrist.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Mr. Roach, you are from Iowa?

Mr. ROACH. That is right.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Live about 100 miles east of where I live, as I understand.

Mr. ROACH. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Lately there has been a great increase in the soybean acreage in that country.

Mr. ROACH. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILCHRIST. I think you said that in the last 5 years it has increased by leaps and bounds.

Mr. ROACH. That is true.

Mr. GILCHRIST. So that farmers now there are raising more and more and more soybeans every year?

Mr. ROACH. That is true.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Next year they should raise still more according to the request of the Department.

Mr. ROACH. That is true.

Mr. GILCHRIST. The Department put a floor price on soybeans last

year.

Mr. ROACH. $1.80 a bushel.

Mr. GILCHRIST. $1.80 a bushel.

Mr. ROACH. That is what the producer is getting in 1943 for his crop.

That floor price is supported by the

Mr. GILCHRIST. Yes, sir. Commodity Credit Corporation? Mr. ROACH. Yes, sir; that is right.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Out of the funds that they get; their appropriations. Mr. ROACH. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILCHRIST. This year-and in fact every year in the last 5 years those of us who produced soybeans-the soybean crop has been a good paying crop?

Mr. ROACH. That is right.

Mr. GILCHRIST. I suppose that the farmers out there this year have gotten as high as $40 an acre from soybeans.

Mr. ROACH. As high as what?

Mr. GILCHRIST. $40.

Mr. ROACH. More than that.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Well, they are lucky; how much more?

Mr. ROACH. Well

Mr. GILCHRIST (interposing). I figured perhaps I got $35 or $40. Mr. ROACH. Around $45 an acre gross, before the expenses of the crop were deducted.

Mr. GILCHRIST. That was the amount received for the beans when sold at the home town?

Mr. ROACH. That is right.

Mr. GILCHRIST. The soybean crop is produced without any more expense, than the corn crop, is it not?

Mr. ROACH. The seed cost a little more per acre.

Mr. GILCHRIST. A little more?

Mr. ROACH. Seed costs are more per acre than it does to produce

corn.

Mr. GILCHRIST. How much more?

Mr. ROACH. It takes about a bushel and a quarter or a bushel and a half of seed to the acre that cost last year about $2 per bushel. So that it costs between $2 and $3 per acre to seed the crop. Corn costs about a dollar an acre to seed the crop.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Well, then there would be a difference of a dollar or two per acre between costs in raising soybeans and costs in corn; and the other expenses would be practically the same?

Mr. ROACH. That is correct.

Mr. GILCHRIST. You have to cultivate the soybeans the same as you do the corn, do you not?

Mr. ROACH. What is that?

Mr. GILCHRIST. You cultivate the soybeans the same, the same amount of work.

Mr. ROACH. Some, however, put it in with a drill, but most of them put it in and cultivate it the same as corn.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Cultivate it three times, usually, or twice?

Mr. ROACH. About three times if you have time.

Mr. GILCHRIST. And that land there upon which you raise beans is worth about $125 an acre?

Mr. ROACH. About that.

Mr. GILCHRIST. And you get fifty-odd dollars per acre out of it per

year.

Mr. ROACH. We did this year.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Well, soybean raising has been prosperous, as you said awhile ago, for the last 5 years or more; it has been a prosperous

business.

Mr. ROACH. That is right.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Notwithstanding these damnable laws that are against you, you still get $50 an acre profit out of it; is that right? Mr. ROACH. Well, this is the first year we have gotten a profit like this out of it.

Mr. GILCHRIST. You have always gotten a profit.

Mr. PACE. He did not say a profit.

Mr. GILCHRIST. What is that?

Mr. PACE. He did not say a profit; he did not say a profit. He said gross.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Well, as compared to corn it is about the same. You get about the same profit out of soybeans as you do out of corn, or would there be exceptions?

Mr. ROACH. Corn is a more profitable crop to grow than soybeans. Mr. GILCHRIST. Why so?

Mr. ROACH. We get a bigger yield and the price is higher. We have a ceiling price on corn of 95 cents per bushel.

Mr. GILCHRIST. This year's price on beans is $1.80.

Mr. ROACH. We get a lot bigger yield of corn than we do soybeans. Mr. GILCHRIST. I know, but the real truth is that soybean price per bushel was more than twice what they are paying for corn.

Mr. ROACH. And our yield in corn is over twice what we get in beans.

Mr. GILCHRIST. I thought you said that the average was 23 bushels but this year you would probably make forty-odd bushels per acre of beans.

Mr. ROACH. We are getting a yield of about 30 bushels per acre in the State of Iowa this year. The average for the Nation is but 23 bushels. We get a little more in Iowa than the balance of the Nation.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Where is the Soybean Association's headquarters? Mr. ROACH. At Hudson, Iowa.

Mr. GILCHRIST. That is down in Black Hawk County.

Mr. ROACH. That is right; over near Waterloo.

Mr. GILCHRIST. That is an Iowa association?

Mr. ROACH. No; that is a national association.

Mr. GILCHRIST. I know, but it was originally an Iowa association. Mr. ROACH. No.

Mr. GILCHRIST. Where was it organized?

Mr. ROACH. In Ohio.

Mr. GILCHRIST. In Ohio?

Mr. ROACH. The headquarters happen to be at Hudson, Iowa, because our executive secretary lives there.

Mr. GILCHRIST. How many States do you know of that have this situation; represented in the association?

Mr. ROACH. Well, I cannot tell you offhand, but I know Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arkansas-most of the States in the Corn Belt and some few States outside of the Corn Belt that grow a few beans. Most of the beans are grown in the Corn Belt.

Mr. GILCHRIST. That is all, Mr. Roach.

Mr. KLEBERG. Any further questions? Will the gentleman please stay on the beam? I could not get just exactly what the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Gilchrist, was going to bring out in connection with this bill. It is perfectly all right, but in the future-

Mr. GILCHRIST (interposing). I do not see why I cannot prove that these folks wanting margarine are getting a good large profit just now under conditions that exist now.

Mr. KLEBERG. That is fine. I wanted to state-

Mr. GILCHRIST (continuing). If that is not plain to people, I would like to make it so, and I certainly was on the beam.

Mr. KLEBERG. You have made it clear.

Mr. GILCHRIST. I was right on the beam all of the time.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KLEBERG. Mr. Andresen.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Roach, for your information, I want to show you from statistics that Iowa is the second butter-producing State in the Union, having produced nearly 14 percent of all of the butter produced in the United States.

Mr. ROACH. I know that.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Last year Iowa produced 240,680,000 pounds of butter and was second in rank in the States in butter production.

Now, is your concern about the use of soybean oil one for the present time, or are you thinking about the future?

Mr. ROACH. I am thinking about the future. I am thinking about the future; what we are going to do with this soybean oil we are producing in the future.

The little county in which I live, Bremer County, has 21 creameries. We are in the very heart of the dairy section of Iowa. We do not fear and have not feared the competition of oleomargarine in our butter manufacturing. We feel that there is a place for both products; that people will buy butter if they can get it, at a very superior price over oleomargarine. That has not been true all of the times, however. We have not come to that conclusion until the last 5 years. We have had considerable discusison in our State about oleomargarine within the past year or year and a half.

Mr. ANDRESEN. As I understand it, there is no oil, vegetable oil that is supposed to be as prolific in its use as soybean oil.

Mr. ROACH. Well, I do not know about that.

Mr. ANDRESEN. They use it for paints.

Mr. ROACH. That is true.

Mr. ANDRESEN. And a good many other things. In fact, they are working on new uses for soybean oil in industry, in the chemical laboratories of the country, at the present time.

Mr. ROACH. I think that is true.

Mr. ANDRESEN. So that the increase in soybeans of 21 percent for the State of Iowa for 1944 is not because they want to get more soybean oil for margarine-or is it for some other purpose?

Mr. ROACH. I think it is to get the total fats of our Nation up to supply the dietary requirements of our Nation. I do not think that is for margarine or I do not think it is for paints. I think it is for use in all of those various products.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Due to the shortage of fats and oils in this country? Mr. ROACH. Due to the shortage of fats and oils.

Mr. ANDRESEN. You stated something about soybean oil being worth 1134 cents a pound.

Mr. ROACH. That is the selling price in a tank car at the local point in Iowa now.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Is that what it is sold for to manufacturers of margarine?

Mr. ROACH. I do not know. I do not think the manufacturers of margarine obtain any of that from the crushers. That first goes to the refiners and there is a refining process that is done to the soybean oil before it can be used for the manufacture of margarine.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Is soybean oil sold to the industry at a lower price than what it should be?

Mr. ROACH. I do not believe I follow the question.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Is soybean oil being subsidized so that the manufacturers of soybean oil products get a subsidy from the Government? Mr. ROACH. I do not know about that. I do know that since the Government support price has been put on soybeans, that is for 1942 and 1943, the soybeans are all sold to the Commodity Credit Corporation. The Commodity Credit Corporation sells the beans back to the crushers. Then the crusher crushes the beans and sells the products therefrom at certain ceiling prices, or certain floor prices, whichever the case may be, to industry. Now, the price that the producer pays for the beans when he purchases them from the Commodity Credit Corporation is based upon a sliding scale, depending on the plant, the type of plant; its location and various other factors. Those factors I am not familiar with.

Mr. PACE. Will you pardon me right there, Mr. Andresen?

Mr. ANDRESEN. Yes.

Mr. PACE. The same program as is followed for flaxseed, which has grown up in Minnesota.

Mr. ROACH. I presume so; I am not familiar with the growing of flaxseed.

Mr. ANDRESEN. There is a subsidy on linseed oil.

Mr. PACE. Which is made from flaxseed.

Mr. ROACH. But the present price of soybean oil and the present price of the oil meal produced from soybeans warrant the paying in excess of $1.80 per bushel. In other words, if the processor can buy beans at $1.80 and sell his soybean oil meal at existing prices, and his oil at this price that I have quoted, 1134 cents a pound, he does not need a subsidy, because last spring the Commodity Credit Corporation upped the price on soybean oil meal considerably and there might have been a loss last year, but I do not believe there is a loss in the industry this year.