Mr. ANDRESEN. I just want to bring out one other point in line with You state that you are concerned about the future of

your concern.

soybean oil and soybeans after the war is over.

Mr. ROACH. That is true. We are getting along fine now.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I can tell you that the dairy industry is equally concerned as to what it is going to do with all of the butter after the war is over.

Mr. ROACH. I can appreciate that. I have sold butterfat for 18 cents a pound and sometimes a little less. That is a tough game. Mr. ANDRESEN. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KLEBERG. Any further questions?

Mr. MURRAY. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KLEBERG. Mr. Murray.

Mr. MURRAY. I would like to ask if the oleomargarine manufacturers are not making all of the oleo they can now under their allocations. Mr. ROACH. I do not know about that, Mr. Murray.

Mr. MURRAY. So if they are doing that, there is no use trying to stimulate the production without further allocations of fats. I understand that they are allowed 160 percent of the 1941 production, and the oil people in the War Food Administration tell me that there will be difficulty in getting any change in that allocation. The way the production of oleomargarine is going most of this year indicates that the 160 percent of 1941 production of oleomargarine is just about going to be fulfilled.

Mr. ROACH. I do not know about that, I am sure.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Will the gentleman yield at that point?

Mr. MURRAY. Yes; I will yield to you.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Due to the shortage of soybean oil and cottonseed oil, and the amount that can go into oleo, the O. P. A. has just increased the point value on olemargarine from four points to six points.

Mr. ROACH. I noticed that in the morning paper.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Beginning November 1. So, there must be a shortage of oil.

Mr. ROACH. I think there very definitely is a shortage of oil or the soybean producers would not be asked to up their soybean acreage in 1944 further than they were in 1943.

Mr. KLEBERG. Any further questions?

Mr. PACE. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KLEBERG. Mr. Pace.

Mr. PACE. If there is a shortage, why within the last few days have they allocated 100,000,000 pounds more of lard to soap? You no not anticipate that there will be much difficulty in getting an increase in allotments for the making of a food commodity, if it is placed where the public can buy it.

Mr. ROACH. There has been that amount allocated to the soap industry?

Mr. PACE. Within the last 10 days; 100,000,000 pounds, with an anticipation that it will go to 400,000,000 pounds.

Now, as I understand you are both a dairyman and a farmer, soybean producer?

Mr. ROACH. That is right.

Mr. PACE. And you feel that one of your commodities should be just as free as the other?

Mr. ROACH. That is right.

Mr. PACE. As a food commodity.

Mr. ROACH. Yes, that is right.

We grow beans in the field, and we milk cows in the barn. One hand does one job and one hand does the other. I do not feel that this hand should be jeopardized at the expense of this hand, or that this hand should pay over to this one. It all goes into the same pocket.

Mr. PACE. That is all.

Mr. KLEBERG. Any further questions? If not, we desire to thank . you, Mr. Roach.

Mr. ROACH. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF DAVID G. WING, MECHANICSBURG, OHIO

Mr. KLEBERG. The next witness is Mr. Wing. Mr. Wing, we will be glad to hear you. Will you give your full name; your business, and your address to the reporter?

Mr. WING. David G. Wing, Mechanicsburg, Ohio.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my paper has some repetition of Mr. Roach's, but it is only about 5 minutes long, and it will not take long to read it through, so I think I will just read through this paper and then you will not be held up.

Mr. KLEBERG. You did not tell us what your business was. Mr. WING. I am a farmer; I have been a farmer all of my life. My name David G. Wing, of Mechanicsburg, Ohio. I am a farmer and a member of the American Soybean Association.

For the last 2 years I was presdent of this association and am now a director from Ohio.

The American Soybean Association is an association of soybean producers; that is, farmers, growing soybeans. It takes note of and is interested in any matter of importance which might affect the interests of its members, with respect to soybeans, and boybean prod

ucts.

Ou rmembership is made up of some 5,000 members from all of the soybean-growing States. You understand, however, that soybean growers are usually, generally, farmers in the Corn Belt where soybeans do the best.

I am also a dairy farmer and milk some 40 head of dairy cows. I need not review the rapid advance of the soybean in the United States. It is enough to say that in 1940 we crushed 56,000,000 bushels. I am not going to give you the odd number in this, because you are not interested in that.

In 1941 we crushed 64,000,000 bushels; in 1942, 77,000,000 bushels, and for the first 9 months of 1943, we have crushed 80,000,000 bushels. Now, let me explain that just a little bit. This is the amount that has gone to the mills and been crushed.

Lots of beans are kept on the farm and there are a great many beans that are fed on the farm and used for seed and the like.

Since the total production of soybeans in the United States for 1943 is estimated by the Department of Agriculture at 208,000,000

bushels-that is this year's crop-you can readily see that our processors will crush even more beans in this following year-1944.

The crush of beans for the first 10 months of the crop year 1943 has produced over a million pounds of soybean oil. Figures are not available for August and September, but there is no doubt that those 2 months will run around 100,000,000 bushels per month, making a total for the year of about one and a quarter million pounds of soybean oil produced from the 1943 crop on our Corn Belt farms.

Let us go back to Pearl Harbor and see what the reason for this phenomenal increase in soybean production in the United States is. When Japan took the Philippines and the East Indies, they shut off over 1,000,000,000 pounds of coconut and palm oils. Now, that figure is considerably over a billion pounds. But, I was conservative. We had some surplus in storage; enough to tide us over until soybean production could pick up.

The Department of Agriculture, through the A. A. A. asked the Corn Belt farmers to raise soybeans and soybeans have been raised. The support price of $1.60 per bushel last year and $1.80 per bushel this year, of 1943, has helped the farmer. In spite of the lack of machinery it looks as though we will get the estimated 208,000,000-bushel crop harvested. It was raining when I left home, but I am still hoping we can get them all out.

We farmers are just learning how to raise soybeans. We have purchased new drills, cultivators, and combines. We have changed around our crops to fit the soybean into our rotation and when the weather permits harvesting on time, we find the soybean profitable and well adapted to the Corn Belt conditions.

I might add right here, though, that last year some of you gentlemen probably had soybeans left in the field that were not harvesteda complete loss-part of it was because of the inclement weather and another thing was that we did not have enough farm machinery— that is combines-to take care of the crop.

Where does the soybean come into the margarine picture? Since it was not possible to get enough oil from cottonseed to take the place of the coconut and palm oils which we lost to Japan, it was necessary to do something quickly. There is where your soybean fitted into the gap.

Statistics show that in 1938, out of a margarine production of 385,000,000 pounds-I am going to give you just the million figures here -there were 33,000,000 pounds of soybean oil used. That was in 1938.

There was 9.81 percent.

In 1929, out of 300,000,000 pounds production of oleomargarine, 70,000,000 pounds of soybean oil were used, or 29 percent of all of the margarine was made from soybean oil.

In 1940, out of 320,000,000 pounds of margarine produced, there were 87,000,000 pounds of soybean oil used, or 33.86 percent.

In 1941 out of 367,000,000 pounds of margarine produced, they used 75,000,000 pounds of soybean oil. It fell off a little that year, or 25 percent.

In 1942, out of 425,000,000 pounds of production of oleomargarine there was used 13313 million pounds or 38 percent of all of the margarine came from soybean oil.

The 1943 figures are not out yet, but that figure will be raised considerably.

You will see that since 1938, margarine manufacturers have steadily turned to soybean oil for their ingredients and well they should, for it is a very versatile oil and makes good margarine.

We have been asked to increase the 1944 soybean crop 21 percent over 1943. This is an increase of from 4,000,000 acres in 1937 to 14,000,000 acres in 1944.

All of this we are willing to do, but we are anxious to know that we, as American farmers, will have a market for this oil after the war is over and tropical oils come back on the scene. This is what led us to the adoption of a resolution at our meeting of the American Soybean Association at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in Sepember. The resolution was as follows:

Be it resolved, That the American Soybean Association go on record as favoring the repeal of discriminating taxes on oleomargarine made from domestically produced fats and oils.

It is, therefore, easy to see that since oleomargarine has become such a highly important market outlet for our valuable soybean oil, that anything operating unfairly to restrict this market must obviously invite our concern and force us to ask for the removal of any tax which is unfair to the soybean.

As I said, I am also a dairy farmer. We need the soybean meal for our cows. They in turn make this meal into butter.

It does not seem just to tax the margarine manufactured from soybean oil and not tax the butter, which the cow manufactures from soybean meal. Butter and margarine are both rationed and badly needed in our American diet.

There may have been some excuse for taxing margarine years ago. In that connection I was raised up and went through school, through the Ohio State University, and was lectured to by dear old Dr. Erph, and a great many of our dairy professors telling us of the need of protecting butter from oleomargarine, and I believed in it; and I think it was necessary at that time; but we certainly have a right in this democracy of ours to change our minds and change some of our laws, and this certainly is a time when we need to do that.

There may have been some excuse for taxing margarine years ago when there was little Government regulation of food products and when dairy farmers felt sure that anything looking or tasting like butter would surely put the cow out of business. But today when butter and margarine are both produced on the same farm, it seems absurd to tax one at the expense of the other.

When we haul a thousand bushels of beans to market today, we have in our truck the raw material from which can be made 10,500 pounds of margarine; or in terms of shortening, 8,400 pounds of shortening; or in terms of salad oil, 8,400 pounds of salad oil.

The dairy cow need not fear the soybean. In fact she loves to eat them.

What we as farmers do fear, however, is the flood of tropical oils which will be coming back into the United States when the war is over. We feel that any discriminating taxes on margarine is unfair when it has a tendency to restrict an otherwise normal expansion for soybean oil.

Let us let the cow and the soybeans stand squarely on their own merits.

I thank you.

Mr. KLEBERG. Any questions?

Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KLEBERG. Mr. Andresen.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Wing, your apprehension is about the future of soybeans or soybean oil when the war is over.

Mr. WING. That is right.

Mr. ANDRESEN. And, of course, that is our apprehension so far as dairy products are concerned.

Mr. WING. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Do you think that the quarter of a cent a pound tax on oleo, is any material tax that is causing any injury or will cause any?

Mr. WING. Only a quarter of a cent?

Mr. ANDRESEN. That is what it is.

Mr. WING. That is all?

Mr. ANDRESEN. That is not material?

Mr. WING. Not material; no.

Mr. ANDRESEN. You are trying more to remove the tax on colored oleo.

Mr. WING. That is right.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Have you any particular reasons why oleo should be colored to look like butter?

Mr. WING. I see no reason why it should not be.

Mr. KLEBERG. Will the gentleman yield right there for a question? Mr. ANDRESEN. Yes; Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KLEBERG. The quarter of a cent tax is not material; and taxes are supposed to be levied as a revenue measure.

Would the gentleman advocate a tax of a quarter of a cent a pound on butter?

Mr. WING. Well, I see no sense in either one of them.

Mr. KLEBERG. All right.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Roach testified as to the amount of oil that could be raised from an acre of soybeans. Do you agree with his figures?

Mr. WING. Yes; I think that his figures are all right. Iowa yields per acre are a little higher than they are in Ohio. I think his Iowa figures would be all right.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Can you raise more soybean oil per acre than the cotton farmers can raise cottonseed oil?

Mr. WING. I cannot answer that question. I do not know what the yield is.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Let me ask you this, then. Could oleomargarine be made exclusively out of soybean oil?

Mr. WING. Yes, sir; I understand that it can.

Mr. ANDRESEN. And, I understand from good business practices the margarine manufacturers will make their oleo out of the cheapest oils that they can get.

Mr. WING. Well, I am not acquainted with the margarine manufacturers enough to answer that question.