A New Approach to the Farm Problem

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

ONE of the basic causes of the American farm problem is the failure of agriculture to keep abreast of industry in research and development. Farmers have concentrated on learning how to increase their yields, leaving it up to the Government to worry about their surpluses, while hundreds of new industrial discoveries have pushed the farmer out of much of his market. Synthetics, for example, have taken over 45% of the market for natural fibers, 62% of the market for leather shoe soles, and two-thirds of the market for household soap. Last week, prompted by the recent report of the President's Commission on Increased Industrial Use of Agricultural Products. Congress was considering a handful of bills to authorize a concentrated attack on the problem. Main point of the report: while industry is spending some $3 billion a year on developing new consumer products and improving old ones, combined governmental and private agricultural research totals only $375 million--most of it to grow larger crops.

As a start toward making agriculture competitive with industry in research, the commission recommended that the present $16 million utilization research budget of the Agriculture Department be tripled, with much of the money being used to farm out promising research projects to private laboratories. The commission also recommended federal incentives, such as fast tax write-offs, to encourage investment in industries using farm products.

But farm experts consider the commission's plan only a beginning, urge a crash program costing four or five times what the commission recommended. The commission itself listed $211 million worth of agricultural research projects now under way that could be pushed through immediately. Among them: i) development of powdered whole milk that tastes like fresh 2) a method to make newsprint from southern hardwoods, which would make up income small farmers have lost in cotton; 3) a process to extract fertilizer from chicken feathers; 4) a way to get from rice hulls 750,000 Ibs. a year of a special wax, now imported; 5) development of a host of new drugs, such as antibiotics from tomato leaves and hormones from hay.

There is plenty of evidence that research can solve many farm-surplus problems. Powdered eggs have been so improved that they have hatched a new line of cake and cookie mixes. Only a few years ago surplus-ridden citrus growers in Florida were destroy ing tons of oranges in an effort to bolster prices; now about 50% of their crop is being turned into frozen orange juice and many growers are expanding. A new process, developed by the Agriculture Department, to dehydrate cooked potatoes has proved so successful that several manufacturers have put the product on the market. Predicts Dr. G. Edward Hilbert. research director of the President's commission: "This development will do for the potato industry what frozen concentrated orange juice has done for the citrus industry." -

The biggest, most stubborn surplus problem facing the nation is corn. This year's estimated corn carryover will be more than 1.4 billion bu., an alltime record, and the Government owns more than goo million bu. of corn, for which there is no market. But the utilization laboratories of the Agriculture Department are working on processes for using corn in plastics, paper, oil drilling mud, glue, heatproof lacquer, tanning agents and a host of other industrial needs. Anticipating a major industrial market for corn, the American Maize-Products Co. and Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts have set up a program for Midwest farmers to grow 30,000 acres of a special variety of corn tailored to industry's needs. Farmers will be guaranteed a price at least 12% above the regular corn market. Floyd J. Hosking, executive vice president of the privately financed Corn Industries Research Foundation, estimates a potential industrial need for up to 1.3 billion bu. of corn each year, more than last year's corn carryover, with $4 billion in new plants built to process it. But first there must be more basic research. The Federal Government recently increased from three to twelve the team of scientists working on a crucial phase of corn chemistry. Says Dr. Hilbert: "If a team of 50 could be put to work we could clean it up in two or three years."

Not even the research enthusiasts expect the farm problem to be solved quickly. But they argue that it makes more sense to spend $200 million or $300 million a year on research that will provide permanent solutions than to spend $3.7 billion a year on support plans that only make the farm problem worse. Says Purdue University Biochemist Roy L. Whistler: "The experimental stations at the universities are waking up to the fact that it isn't enough to tell farmers how to grow more. They have to be told what to do with the crops they've grown."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.