Spring Planting

A glance at the record $4.97 billion item in the budget for aid to farmers is enough to prove to both Dwight Eisenhower and Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson that something has to be done about the present price-support program. Last week Agriculture Secretary Benson was out planting the seeds of change. In New Orleans he told a group of cotton shippers that, bright as the present cotton situation looks today, he now holds only dim hope for cotton's future "so long as governing basic legislation is retained."

The point in this cotton picking was essentially the same as that which Benson threshed out on the wheat-surplus problem only a few days before: the present law, with its high minimum floor (75% of parity) in price supports for five basic crops (cotton, corn, wheat, rice, peanuts), works in a vicious circle. The more successful Benson is in getting rid of surpluses the higher, by law, he must raise the floor under price supports. The higher he raises the floor the greater will be the encouragement for the production of new surpluses--and the bigger and bigger will be Agriculture Department budgets.

What Benson wants is new farm legislation, enabling him to set truly flexible support levels--theoretically all the way down to zero if necessary--at his own discretion. Benson's present plan is to get the backing of agricultural groups by quiet speeches, and to influence Congress by friendly persuasion. His theory: if the Agriculture Department pushes no plan of its own, perhaps Congress will see the need and author the legislative reforms itself. But with the congressional elections of 1958 just ahead and 1960 not far beyond, the hope for victory without Benson's own direct leadership is a faint hope indeed.

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