is a little different process. We apply the marketing quota to the farmer. The current crop would have produced 200 bushels on the 10 acres, minus 20 bushels, the normal yield over the percentage fixed by the Secretary, which leaves the farmer 180 bushels that he has a right to market under his quota.
Mr. President, I think that probably illustrates the complications involved in this complex provision. It further illustrates how helpless the farmer is under these quotas when an edict of the Secretary of Agriculture goes out telling him how much of his farm he can use.
I inquire of the Senator from Idaho [Mr. Pope] if I have made a fair and accurate statement of the application of this language to a given case.
Mr. POPE. Mr. President, will the Senator from Oregon yield?
Mr. McNARY. I asked the question expecting an answer.
Mr. POPE. As nearly as I could follow the Senator he has made an accurate computation. I invite his attention to a chart which has been carefully prepared and is now on the wall, showing the calculations under this provision of the bill. In the chart the Senator will see that we assume a farm with a base acreage of 200 acres. Seventy-seven percent of the base acreage would be the amount which the farmer could actually cultivate. In another chart we have shown how the 77 percent would be reached.
Mr. McNARY. The Senator is assuming a different situation than is detailed in the amendment then.
Mr. POPE. Not at all.
Mr. McNARY. Where does he get the 77 percent? Who declares the 77 percent?
Mr. POPE. The Secretary of Agriculture.
Mr. McNARY. What percentage is the Senator using?
Mr. POPE. I am using 77 percent as the amount of base acreage determined by the Secretary, as I indicated a few I moments ago. I have shown by another chart how the Secretary would arrive at that percentage. Seventy-seven percent of the base acreage would be 154 acres in this case. Assuming the acreage actually planted by a noncooperator is 220 acres, he plants 20 acres more than his base acreage.
Mr. McNARY. Is he permitted to do that?
Mr. POPE. If he is not a cooperator, he can do it, but if he is a cooperator he cannot do it.
Mr. McNARY. But he is supposed to be a cooperator to get the benefits of the bill. If he is not a cooperator, he does not get the parity payments, soil-conservation benefit payments, and the privilege of going to get a loan from this corporation.
Mr. POPE. He could get a 70-percent loan.
Mr. McNARY. Oh, yes. But the Senator cannot jump from a cooperator to a noncooperator to explain the illustration.
Mr. POPE. I certainly can. The marketing quota applies to the noncooperator, so we have a perfect right to apply the calculation to a noncooperator as well as to a cooperator. It will be noted that I have applied it on this chart to a noncooperator, assuming that he actually planted 220 acres.
Mr. McNARY. Could he do that if he were a cooperator and under contract?
Mr. POPE. No; he could not.
Mr. McNARY. That is the point I am making. The Senator is giving an illustration that is impossible because it is provided against in the contract.
Mr. POPE. I can make a calculation on the basis of the cooperator and make another calculation on the basis of the noncooperator, and this particular illustration is that of a noncooperator. I would have to make a different calculation as to a cooperator.
Mr. McNARY. But the cooperator could not plant 220 acres.
Mr. POPE. No.
Mr. McNARY. Because his adjustment contract would not permit it.
Mr. POPE. Certainly, but will not the Senator concede that the marketing quota applies to the noncooperator as well as to the cooperator, and then will he not permit me to explain what happens to the noncooperator?
Mr. McNARY. The Senator is confusing the whole matter by taking up the case of a noncooperator who does not work under a contract. However, let the Senator proceed.
Mr. POPE. The Senator illustrated his point by using the case of a cooperator. I want to apply it to a noncooperator to show how it will work.
Mr. McNARY. The Senator does not think there will be many noncooperators, does he?
Mr. POPE. I have no doubt there will be some noncooperators under any voluntary program. If the Senator desires me to do so I shall be glad to show how this works out under the program.
The noncooperator would plant 220 acres. Then the excess of the acreage over the specified base acreage would be 66 acres. In other words, he has 66 acres more than his base acreage. If the normal yield per acre is 10 bushels, the normal yield of the excess acreage referred to in this formula would be 660 bushels. Assuming the actual yield on the farm is 15 bushels, then the actual production on 220 acres would be 3,300 bushels. That is the amount he actually raises. Then subtract the normal yield from the excess acreage, 660 bushels, and we have as the farm marketing quota 2,640 bushels. All over and above the marketing quota would have to be stored, so he would actually store 660 bushels.
That is the case of a noncooperator. We could take a cooperator, and instead of assuming that he planted 220 acres, say he planted 154 acres, and then make the calculation. Of course, we have to ask whether he is a cooperator or noncooperator in determining what the marketing quota would be.
Mr. McNARY. The Senator has attempted to explain a very difficult provision of the bill.
Mr. POPE. It does not seem to me to be a difficult computation.
Mr. McNARY. I am very glad that it is easy for the Senator. I am sorry the Senator did not use the cooperator in his example, because about 100 percent of those who come within the provisions of the bill are supposed to be cooperators. If a cooperator had 200 acres, and that was the soil-depleting base acreage, what would be his quota under the provisions of the bill? In other words, if one is a cooperator, and has a contract before he becomes a cooperator, and the inducements are three in number, which I do not care again to recite, having mentioned them just a moment ago, if he had 200 acres susceptible of being planted to wheat, he would want to know how many bushels of wheat he could raise and come within his quota. If he exceeds his quota, he is up against a penalty, a very severe penalty. He wants to get his whole quota in, because he naturally wants to raise all the wheat he can on this acreage, because he pays taxes on his whole farm all the time.
If this is so simple to the Senator, I ask him this question. Let us suppose a man is a cooperator, and has 200 acres. Assume he raises 50 bushels per acre That is a little high in Idaho, and so we will say 10 bushels, and make it easy. What would then be the full amount, the maximum quota, which this cooperator could sell without coming in conflict with the penal provisions of the law?
Mr. POPE. If he produced exactly the normal, then there would be no amount stored; he would be observing his marketing quota, if he should happen to produce a normal amount. But if he produced more than the normal amount, then the amount above the normal, in the case of the cooperator, would be the amount he would store.
Mr. McNARY. I worked out a formula a moment ago which I thought fitted into this case, and I think it is simpler than the other formula. Assuming one is a cooperator—and he has not any business owning a farm if he is not a cooperator, under the bill, if there is anything to it—and suppose he raises 10 bushels an acre, and his soil depleting base acreage is 200 acres. He is anxious to know how much of that acreage he can sell when the harvest is ripened and threshed. What will be his maximum quota? I ask the Senator to apply his own figures and tell me, on that basis,
