AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

Ec
House oF REPRESENTATITVES,
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
Wednesday, February 15, 1928.

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o’clock a. m.,
Hon. Gilbert N. Haugen (chairman), presiding.

Present: Representatives Haugen (chairman), Williams, Thomp-
son, Ketcham, Hall, Fort, Menges, Adresen, Adkins, Clarke, Hope,
Aswell, Kincheloe, Swank, Fulmer, and Rubey.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will kindly come to order. Mr.
Yoakum. the committee will be glad to hear vou this morning.
STATEMENT OF B. F. YOCAKUM. NEW YORK CITY
Mr. Yoakum. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it
is a very great pleasure to me and an honor to appear before you
to discuss with you gentlemen who are endeavoring to solve it the
most important question of the world, agriculture; and I have some
figures and facts which, 'f vou will permit me, I will undertake to
state.

Every other big business is organized to distribute and market
its products. Farming is the largest of all, and yet dealers dictate
prices to both farmers and consumers. .

The four leading farm commodities are estimated in money value
annually as follows:
Corn_______________.
Cotton____.__.

Hay and forage____.
Wheat

31, 956, 000, 000
~ 600, 000, 000
1 320, 000, 000

950. 000. 000
These products can be classed in volume with steel, oil, and auto-
mobiles, all of which are highly organized, with the most efficient
distribution and selling systems. Yet these farm commodities
stand unorganized for marketing and unstabilized as to prices.

Compare steel with wheat.

From ore beds, coal mines for furnaces, and mills, 82 per cent of
the country’s total steel production is controlled by 10 organiza-
tions; 82 per cent of the total steel production is 47,500,000 tons,
the standard price of which is $38 a ton. or a total money value of
$1,805,000,000. }

Mr. CLarkE. You are using pig iron there as a unit at $387

Mr. Yoakum. I am speaking now of the steel products, rails and
steel, or manufactured steel. }

Eighty per cent of our wheat production—640,000,000 bushels
out of a total crop of 800,000,000 bushels—is produced in 14 States.

01