Benson's Bad Eggs

AGRICULTURE Benson's Bad Eggs

One of the biggest price-support fiascos in U.S. Agriculture Department history was the attempt to support the price of eggs. When eggs in cold storage went rotten, the department, in desperation, turned to buying dried eggs, stored tons of them in a cave near Atchison, Kans. By the time the Government decided in 1953 that supporting egg prices hurt even the farmers, by encouraging the overproduction it was intended to counteract, total taxpayer losses passed $331 million.

Last week the Agriculture Department began to mix the same foul old omelet. After listening to a delegation of New Jersey egg farmers and their complaints about the egg surplus, Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson issued orders to buy millions of dollars worth of frozen eggs from the nation's commercial egg-freezing plants as an indirect aid to prop up falling egg prices. The new egg-buying program is on top of $16 million Benson has spent since last October buying dried eggs, mostly for the Government-aided school-lunch program.

Easy Pickings. The drop in prices was largely seasonal, although the surplus was the result of the revolution in egg raising. Not only do today's hens lay twice as many eggs per bushel of feed as their grandmothers did, but their peak laying period has been prolonged. The new, automated egg operations have made egg raising so easy that virtually every section of the country now mass-produces eggs. The Southeastern states until five years ago were major egg importers; they are now major exporters, and many Southern eggmen predict that in a few years they will raise enough eggs for all the population east of the Rockies.

Government farm-support programs have also hatched new troubles. When controls on acreage cut the incomes of cotton and tobacco farmers, they went into the egg business. In addition to encouraging this new competition, the Government farm program has forced egg raisers' feed costs sky-high through propping up the price of most grains. Although egg prices today average 25-c- a dozen on the farm, back to the level of 1941, Eastern eggmen today pay $4.50 for a 100-lb. sack of mash that cost $2.38 then. "I personally do not believe in Government price supports or production controls.'' says New Jersey State Agriculture Secretary Phillip Alampi. ''but the poultry farmer, particularly in New Jersey, is the dead-end kid of American agriculture."

Mom & Pop Trouble. As production has increased, consumption has dropped from 383 eggs per capita a year in 1949 to 359 due to dieters skipping heavy breakfasts and some fear of cholesterol in egg yolks. To bring production more in line with consumption, many a big producer thinks that the Government should stay out of the market, let competition eliminate marginal producers. Says N.A. McNally, who operates a 100,000-chicken farm near Los Angeles: "If the Government had just let things alone, some marginal producers would have been dropping out of the picture by now. I mean the 'Mom-and-Pop' operations--the ones where Pop comes home from his regular job to gather eggs every night.'' McAnally figures that Benson's egg buying has simply encouraged marginal farmers to hang grimly on, inspired big operators to put more baby chicks into the production line for still larger surpluses this fall.

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