Evening star., 1954-01-12
Grosping the Farm Nettie

The Eisenhower administration has been
facing two particularly serious and politically
distressing problems afflicting the farmer. One
is that Government purchase and rigid price
support policies-embodied in law but designed
originally to meet wartime needs-have resulted
in the storing of tremendous and costly sur
pluses of certain farm products The other Is
that farm income for variety OF reasons
including unbalanced production traceable in
part to the rigid price support system and TO
loss Of foreign marketS-has been IN pro-
longed and sharp decline.
President Eisenhower after year in which
all shades of opinion bearing upon the farm
situation have been heard, has now offered to
Congress program which he hopes will allevi-
ate these problems and the others collateral to
them. The key to this program is system Of
flexible price supports, to become effective at
the end of 1854 related more closely to supply
and demand. Parity-a formula representing
the relationship between farm prices and farm
costs-instead of remaining on a 19l0-14 base
would be modernized for all basic commodities
as of January /, 1855, with the transition t. be
gradual The year-to-year variation in price
support levels likewise would be gradual, with a
limitation on the change in each calendar year.
As first step, the President has proposed
that SIS billion of the nearly 81 billion of
commodities now owned by the Government
should be insulated" from commercial mar
kets, thus neutralizing them as threat to pre-
vaiIing prices. In addition to being stockpiled
as emergency reserves they would be available
for disaster relief school lunch programs and
for foreign aid presumably not competitive with
commercial production either here or abroad.
The borrowing authority of the Commodity
Credit Corporation, now limited to $6.75 billion
and almost entirely committed, would be in
creased to $85 billion. The President has pro-
posed also that steps be taken in cooperation
with foreign governments to expand inter-
national trade in foods and fbers.
The principle of flexible price supports
with a rs to 90 per cent range of a modernized
parity was written into the 1949 Agricultural
Act but by amendment a rigid 80 per cent sup
port level was fixed for six basic commodities
until the end of 1854. Abandonment of the
guaranteed 90 per cent support Is certain to
face resistance from some farm quarters and
from their representatives in Congress.
The President, however, has reached out
courageously to grasp this political nettle There
were those who advised him to wait until next
year-that is, until after the congressional elec-
tions-before tackling this problem. But he
decided and this is greatly to his credit to face
the issue now Whether the proposals which
he has submitted are the wiseSt, and whether
it will be possible to get them through politi-
cally conscious Congress at this session, may
be open to question But no rational person
can deny that there is crying need for reform
in a farm program which piles up unmanage-
able surpluses at the expense Of the taxpayer at
the same time that it is pricing the farmer
out of what have been some of his traditional
markets.