a corresponding reduction in numbers of livestock other than sheep below a representative period designated by the Secretary. Such program shall be formulated in such a manner as to make it possible, in conjunction with the conservation reserve program, to retire entire farming or ranching units from production. All the provisions of this title not inconsistent therewith shall apply to the grazing lands acreage reserve program."

(b) by amending the first sentence of section 105 (c) to read: "The total compensation paid producers for participating in the acreage reserve program with respect to any year's program shall not exceed $800,000,000, and with respect to any commodity for any year shall not exceed the amount shown below: Wheat, $375,000,000; cotton, $300,000,000; corn in the commercial corn-producing area, $300,000,000; peanuts, $700,000,000; rice, $23,000,000; tobacco, $45,000,000; and grazing, $60,000,000.”

(c) by striking out the period at the end of paragraph (a) (1) of section 107 and inserting: "or (where an entire farming or ranching unit is retired from production) the grazing of livestock."

SEC. 9. (a) Subsection 107 (a) (1) of the Soil Bank Act is amended to read as follows: "To establish and maintain for the contract period protective vegetative cover (including, but not limited to, grass and trees), water storage facilities, or other soil-, water-, wildlife-, or forest-conserving uses on a specifically designated acreage of land on the farm regularly used 'as grazing land or pasture or' in the production of crops (including crops, such as tame hay, alfalfa, and clovers, which do not require annual tillage)."

(b) Section 107 of the Soil Bank Act is amended by adding the following new subsection:

"(e) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the Secretary is authorized and directed to formulate and announce a program under this subtitle B for pasture and hay lands and to enter into contracts thereunder with producers which contracts may be for minimum terms of one year, shall prohibit grazing of the contract acres except pursuant to the provisions of section 103 (a) hereof, and may treat pastureland left idle as land established and maintained in vegetative cover. The program formulated by the Secretary shall permit placing entire farming units in the conservation reserve program of the Soil Bank Act." (c) Subsection 109 (c) of the Soil Bank Act is amended to read as follows: "In carrying out the conservation reserve program, the Secretary shall not enter into contracts with producers which would require payments to producers, including the cost of materials and services, in excess of $500,000,000 in any calendar year."

SEC. 10. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, corn planted for silage purposes shall not be considered as corn for purposes of acreage allotments and the acreage reserve program.

SEC. 11. Eligibility of any producer under sections 2 and 4 of this Act shall be limited to proportioned parts of total sales of all commodities, not to exceed in value, at the parity price, of fourteen thousand bushels of corn or ten thousand bushels of wheat, whichever is greater.

[H. R. 10193, 85th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To amend section 101 of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended, relating to price support on wheat

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 101 of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended (7 U. S. C. 1421), is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:

“(g) notwithstanding any other provision of law the level of price support for the 1958 harvest of wheat shall not be less than $2 per bushel."

[H. R. 10204, 85th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To amend section 101 of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended, relating to price support on wheat

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 101 of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended (7 U. S. C. 1421), is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:

"(g) notwithstanding any other provision of law the level of price support for the 1958 harvest of wheat shall not be less than $2 per bushel."

[H. R. 10241, 85th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To amend section 101 of the Agriculture Act of 1949, as amended, relating to the price support on wheat

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 101 of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended (7 U. S. C. 1421), is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:

"(g) notwithstanding any other provision of law the level of price support for the 1958 harvest of wheat shall not be less than $2 per bushel."

[H. R. 10269, 85th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To amend section 101 of the Agriculture Act of 1949, as amended, relating to the price support on wheat

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 101 of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended (7 U. S. C. 1421) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:

"(g) notwithstanding any other provision of law the level of price support for the 1958 harvest of wheat shall be not less than $2 per bushel."

[H. R. 10837, 85th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To provide a support level for the 1958 crop of wheat of not less than $2 per bushel Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 101 (d) of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amended, is amended by adding paragraph (7) a new paragraph as follows:

"(8) The 1958 crop of wheat shall be supported to cooperators at a level of not less than $2 per bushel."

[H. R. 10169, 85th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To amend the Agricultural Act of 1949 to provide for price support at parity for the first three thousand five hundred bushels of wheat produced on each farm

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That subsection (d) of section 101 of the Agricultural Act of 1949 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new paragraph:

"(8) With respect to the first three thousand five hundred bushels of a crop of wheat produced by a cooperator, the level of price support shall be the parity price for wheat."

Mr. ALBERT. We have met this morning to hear representatives from the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Marvin McLain, Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, and some of his associates are here.

Mr. McLain, would you like to come forward, present your associates and have as many of them with you as you would like? Mr. MCLAIN. I think we will just have them all here.

Mr. ALBERT. All right.

Mr. McLAIN. This is Mr. Sorkin, Mr. Shulman, and Mr. Borton. Mr. Shulman is from our General Counsel's office.

Mr. ALBERT. Would each of you state your full name and branch? Mr. SORKIN. Martin Sorkin, Assistant to the Secretary.

Mr. SHULMAN. Edward M. Shulman, Deputy General Counsel. Mr. BORTON. Albert J. Borton, Chief of the Commodity Programs Branch of the Grain Division, CSS.

Mr. ALBERT. You have a prepared statement?

Mr. MCLAIN. I do, Congressman Albert, and I think it will be well if I can present it briefly to you, and then we would be glad to answer any questions.

We assume, from the word we got from the committee clerk, that you wanted us to report on these various bills, together with the wheat situation, and what we were proposing and so forth.

Mr. ALBERT. Any comments you have we would like to hear. We would like also to have you comment on these various bills while you are here.

Mr. MCLAIN. All right, with your permission then I will read this as quickly as I can, and if you have any questions, if you want to stop me, all right, and if you want to wait until the end that is all right.

STATEMENT OF MARVIN L. McLAIN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; ACCOMPANIED BY MARTIN SORKIN, ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; EDWARD M. SHULMAN, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; AND ALBERT J. BORTON, CHIEF, COMMODITY PROGRAMS BRANCH, GRAIN DIVISION, COMMODITY STABILIZATION SERVICE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. McLAIN. I am happy to be here today to give you the Department's reactions to 12 of the many bills that have been introduced in Congress to help solve our wheat problems and the Department's views on needed legislation.

As one of the major crops of this country we feel it most appropriate for this committee to consider the problems of wheat and possible solutions. While we have taken many actions to assist wheat producers, we recognize that all the problems have not been solved.

ACTIONS TAKEN TO ASSIST WHEAT PRODUCERS

We recommended and the Congress enacted, in 1954, the Agricultural Trade and Development Act, Public Law 480, to dispose of sur

pluses. Under this law we have programed the export movement of about 875 million bushels of wheat.

We have in operation a subsidy program for wheat exports which, for liberality, is not approached for any other commodity. Last year we exported 546 million bushels of wheat, the highest level in history. This is also the largest quantity ever exported by any country in any

one year.

We put into effect a wheat-export program which utilizes the facilities of the private trade and has had the effect of boosting the domestic price of wheat.

We liberalized the grade specifications for supporting wheat, permitting loans on wheat which would not ordinarily have qualified. This meant dollars in the pockets of wheat farmers. In order to encourage production of desirable types of wheat we have provided for a 20-cent-per-bushel quality differential against undesirable varieties. We purchased bins to make storage space available to wheat farmers, and provided low-cost credit for farmers to build their own storage. Thus more wheat farmers were given an opportunity to use the loan. We permitted wheat farmers in drought areas to graze their wheat acreage reserve land, thus enabling them to maintain basic breeding herds.

Major efforts in our wheat-research program involve (1) a search for sources of breeding stocks resistant to virulent races of stem rust and other destructive diseases, (2) the development of commercially acceptable varieties resistant to sawfly and other hazards, and (3) improvement in quality of all classes of wheat to better meet demands of the trade.

SUPPLY AND UTILIZATION OF WHEAT

By the start of the 1958-59 wheat-marketing year on July 1, 1958, we expect wheat stocks to be down to about 880 million bushelsthe lowest beginning-of-the-season stocks since the 1953-54 season. At this level, stocks would be about 150 million bushels, or almost 15 percent, below the previous peak reached at the start of the 1955-56

season.

However, the total wheat supply in 1958-59 is expected to be at or near an alltime record high of between 2 and 2.1 billion bushels. At this level, the supply would be near the previous record in the 1956-57 season.

Major factor responsible for this prospective record is the unusually large 1958 winter wheat crop. Winter wheat production is forecast as of April 1 at 964 million bushels, nearly 36 percent above last year's crop, due to a record yield of 21.9 bushels per seeded acre about 3 bushels or over 15 percent above yields last year and 6 bushels above average. This fourth largest of record winter wheat production, together with our estimate of spring wheat production based on the intended acreage and average yields of the past 2 years, would result in a total prospective 1958 crop production between 1.1 and 1.2 billion bushels.

Wheat utilization in 1958-59 is expected to be about 1 billion bushels, the same as in 1957-58. The exact level will depend, of course, upon our export volume. Currently, we anticipate 1958-59 exports of about 400 million bushels, the same as in 1957-58. If exports reach this level, they will be quite high compared with other recent years, exclud

ing 1956-57 when exports, of course, reached an alltime high of about 550 million bushels.

Subtracting the prospective utilization of 1 billion bushels from the prospective supply of from 2 to 2.1 billion bushels leaves the prospective record carryover of 1 to 1.1 billion bushels, the figure referred to earlier. That is enough wheat to more than take care of all of our needs for 1 complete year, both domestic and export.

1958 CROP PROGRAMS

We again will have an acreage allotment and marketing quota program, price support, and an acreage reserve program for the 1958 crops.

The national acreage allotment has been established at 55 million acres, the minimum permitted by law. In the absence of this minimum, the allotment would have been only about 23 million acres.

Price support will be at not less than $1.78 per bushel. This support level is subject to review at the start of the 1958 crop season when we will recalculate the supply percentage to determine whether the combination of this more up-to-date supply percentage and the parity price for July will require an upward adjustment in the $1.78 per bushel rate.

The acreage reserve program signup for the 1958 wheat crop will be a little over 5 million acres. This compares with 12.8 million acres in 1957. The reason for this difference in signup is accounted for largely by the fact that moisture conditions were ideal for wheat seeding last fall in the fall wheat area. Fall wheat growers elected to plant wheat rather than participate in the acreage reserve program.

1959 CROP PROGRAMS

The only program announced to date for the 1959 crop is the acreage allotment and marketing quota program. The national acreage allotment has been set again at 55 million acres, the minimum permitted by law. In the absence of this minimum, the allotment would have been 21.4 million acres.

Farmers will vote on marketing quotas in a referendum scheduled for June. Before that date, the 1959 crop prior-to-planting-time minimum support level will be announced.

It is contemplated now that there will be no acreage reserve program for 1959 crop wheat.

Now to get down to a discussion of the bills, the two-price planH. R. 4637, H. R. 7815, H. R. 7939, H. R. 8059, H. R. 10203.

Mr ALBERT. May I say here, if members want to question you up to now, it will be all right with me. I think it would probably be better to take all the points up and then have questions. You have given us a lot of valuable information and we appreciate having it.

Mr. McLAIN. I think if we get the facts, then we will be glad to try to answer any questions; or, any way you want to do it, Mr. Albert. Mr. ALBERT. All right, proceed.

Mr. MCLAIN. All right.

Perhaps no solution to the wheat problem has been discussed by Congress more than the two-price approach. The two-price approach was one of the first plans we studied in the comprehensive review of