The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965, March 22, 1962, FARM and HOME section, Image 15

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    ^ On this cold, wintry day the squirrel sits snug
n ly in his den, enjoying a feast from his private
storage bin of nuts gathered before the snows
came. His biggest worry is that some bigger,
k bully cousin will pilfer his cache of food be
fore new supplies become available.
^ ; The squirrel is smart. He only gathers what
7}Jr, he can eat during the winter. The rest he
leaves on the ground to rot. A surplus of nuts
ifjJl is no concern to him.
K&H Not so with American farmers. Biggest
farm worry today is what to do with bountiful
'ijtf harvests from the world’s most productive
if? lands. It’s a new worry, relatively, and one
we haven’t learned to cope with even though
^ the nation’s best agricultural “brains” have
turned out a variety of “panaceas that might
Sjjft have worked.”
Qfin Last year each farm worker in the United
States produced enough food, fiber and to
9J9 bacco to supply himself and 26 other persons
?jL/ . . . versus enough for himself and only 15
others as recently as 1951. During the past 10
years, farm output has increased at an annual
rate of 2.5% while die population increased by
yjg only 1.8% per year. While this staggering rec
jWM? ord of farm output means Americans enjoy an
increasing supply of farm goods for a smaller
jy portion of their incomes, it also means that,
(MR for the first time in the history of man, the
terror of famine has been replaced by the
jW problems of feast.
Sjfl In trying to reduce the depressing effects of
surpluses on farmers’ incomes, the government
—through various programs—has taken much
of the excess supply off the open market. As
a result, the Commodity Credit Corporation
now owns close to 100 million tons of farm
products . . . more than 1,000 pounds for each
of the nation’s 184 million people. The total
is roughly 5 times the stockpile of a decade
ago.
During 1961, cost to taxpayers for storage
and handling alone added up to more than
$460 million — a staggering figure of $1,260,
000 a day. Commodity Credit Corporation’s
total net loss on price support operations since
1933 have added up to $9,600 million!
Highest storage costs during fiscal 1961 were
on wheat, $176 million; corn, $149 million, and
grain sorghum, $89 million. Also high on the
cost list were cotton at $22.6 million and
dairy products at $4.4 million. Except for
dairy products, these sums include costs on
crops harvested in 1960 or before; 1961 figures
are not yet available.
How much longer taxpayers will stand for
the huge storage bills on surpluses is a moot
question. Some close observers of the political
scene consider the time very short indeed —
the limit may be very few years more.
Pressure to balance the budget by fiscal 1963
is bearing down on the Department of Agri
culture and its $7-billion-plus budget. The
White House has indicated it’s a likely place
to start trimming domestic spending.