Farm Policies May Cost Republicans

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29061, 25 November 1959, Page 9

Farm Policies May Cost Republicans

I Specially written tor NZPa by

FRANK OLIVER.

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, November 22. While the Secretary jO f Agriculture, Mr Ezra Taft Benson, and the President grope for a new farm policy, some Republicans say frankly that the fa™ problem now duns Republican hopes for increased C ° ngress next November. S T± h 7 ven U P> a year before the election, plnrp^f a ?L« egai T g „ Col L trol of the House of Representatives and all hope of reducing fhe Democratic majority in the Senate.

Only one thing do they cling to fa the coming political battle—the belief that whatever the voters do about Congress, they will put a Republican in the White House again, almost any Republican. Democrats show no sign of being worried by this Republican confidence. But the farmer, who runs the most powerful Congres-

sional lobby ever seen, promises to be the big man in the coming election fight. All reports from farm areas add up to bad political news for the Republicans. Farm income has declined, a big drop of 14 per cent, being registered in the last 12 months, and experts calculate that this big slide will continue through next year past election day. The harvest just hauled in has added to the nation’s wheat surplus and added to this non-stop headache. Now Mr Ben Son and the President propose to cut Federal guarantees from 1.70 dollars a bushel to 1.40 dollars a bushel. The wheat farmer isn’t pleased. Republican professional politicians are not arguing the merits of Mr Benson’s new plans. They simply say they look like losing more votes than they will gain. There lies the political power of the farmer. Whether farm proposals are basically good, bad or indifferent isn’t so important as whether the plans will lose or gain votes for a political party. It already seems clear that the democrats will oppose the new Benson plans, not because they necessarily think them bad, but because they see partisan gains in opposing them.

Apart from professional politicians and farmers, some of Mr Benson’s ideas are getting fairly wide support. Basically he wants to break away from price supports and acreage control; he wants to persuade farmers to produce for the market instead of the storage bins. ' v He also suggests more extensive research for new uses for farm products. He suggests increased shipments of surpluses to needy peoples abroad; and he urges intense application of rural development programmes. This last is a new method of helping the farmer in need of assistance, promoting projects tailor-made to each locality with special emphasis on the provision of parttime industrial employment for farmers who can’t make a good living on the land. '

To that point his programme has wide and warm support. There is less support for his proposal to cut wheat supports, which Mr Benson thinks would reduce production without acreage controls

and thus avoid further additions to the mountainous surplus of wheat which is now two and a half times the annual American consumption. He does include some financial help to induce farmers to retire lan4 producing surplus wheat, but - the consensus of opinion seems to be that this is not enough to satisfy either farmers or their supporters in Congress—hehce the probable lack on farmer votes in the Republican columns next November.

What seems to be a widely held farmer’s point of view was recently expressed to the “New York Times.” Mr Thomas Campbell, of Montana, is said to be the largest single producer of wheat in the country. He believes the surplus supply should be given away to the hungry of India, China and other countries. “There is no surplus of wheat in the world when you put it in reach of all hungry people,’’ he said. He doesn’t believe in dumping it for that would force prices down and other exporters would object; but, he continued, the best thing to do would be to give it away over a period of two-years. He has further ideas not so widely popular. The national acreage allotment for wheat must be set by law at not less than 55 million acres and the yield from the acreage is not expected ever to be below domestic consumption plus export demand. At present, unless utter disaster strikes, surpluses can only grow bigger or at best remain stationary. Mr Campbell believes Congress should cut the acreage by 50 per cent, and cut price supports to 90 cents a bushel. He says that two years of this medicine would reduce the national surplus to manageable proportions and to a’ point where a new general wheat policy could be formulated by the Government. He admits that this would mean hardship for many wheat farmers, but he reminds them they have had 18 good years. Two lean ones would not amount to a serious economic difficulty for either farmers or the nation.

His plan calls for price supports only for domestically consumed wheat and for farmers to be allowed to sell the rest abroad at the world price without any Government subsidy. Under this plan there would be no acreage restrictions. This part of the plan would only operate after the present wheat surplus had been got rid of by the 50 per cent, acreage plan. In the meantime, the Government’s surplus crop investment is rising towards a total of 10 billion dollars and Mr Benson is reported in the press to believe that when that round figure is reached, it may force legislative action next year. However, one competent commentator says: “The feeling here is that the secretary is overoptimistic.” Both parties will be struggling

for the farm vote and will not be anxious to undertake anything drastic that might influence that vote to be cast the “wrong” way. The new Benson plans are really *a reshuffling of old ideas and are not expected to do much beyond “shaking out” some marginal farmers. The farm problem is still present—and so are the mountainous wheat surpluses.