Salesmen Wanted

Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a new, granary-bulging forecast of crop prospects for 1955: the harvest for all crops this year is expected to be 6% above last year's and to equal, if not exceed, the record yield of 1948. Bumper production is anticipated in corn (17% over 1954, and the second-largest crop in history), oats (8% higher than 1954), sorghum grains (up 30%), hay (up 5%), soybeans (up 23%), cotton (30% above the average yield), wheat (5% above the latest forecast) and peanuts (50% above last year).

The huge 1955 yields reflect a growing efficiency on the farm--new fertilizers, insecticides and machinery--which might in ordinary times be cause for congratulations all around. But to a U.S. Government already burdened by $7 billion worth of surplus farm products, they are a thumping new headache.

The bigger yields on fewer acres expose a loophole in the Department of Agriculture's acreage-control program. Nor is the price support program keeping the farmer's income up: it has dropped 10% in the past year.* As a result, the Department of Agriculture seemed to have a choice of three courses: 1) apply more and tougher controls on acreage; 2) adopt an entirely different kind of farm program, e.g., a subsidy for the agricultural end product (the old Brannan Plan), or 3) try to improve the market for U.S. farm products overseas.

Last week Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson's men were hard at work on the third alternative. So far, Benson & Co. have had only middling success in selling surplus farm products. The overflow of agricultural oils (soybean and cottonseed) has been reduced from 1 1/2 billion to 55 million lbs. since 1953, and overall dairy surpluses have fallen by a full 54% as a result of increased U.S. consumption and a giveaway program. But last week Iowa farmers were asked to reseal on their own farms some 50 million bushels of corn, deliverable this month to the Government, but for which the Department of Agriculture can find no market and no storage space.

To step up his sales, Secretary Benson turned to salesmanship. As general sales manager of the Commodity Stabilization Service, he appointed Frank C. Daniels, 59, of Binghamton. N.Y., who has spent most of his life selling farm products. Before he came to the C.S.S. as a consultant last year, he was secretary and general manager of Cooperative Feed Dealers, Inc., of Binghamton, a commercial agricultural supply distribution organization. Salesman Daniels is expected to recruit a staff of commodity sales specialists from private industry, and to begin a worldwide huckstering program.

* After the new crop forecasts were announced last week, soybean futures fell about 6-c-, corn 3-c-, wheat went down 3-c- and cotton dropped 32 points.

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