Problem of Farm Surpluses

Archive Report

New Efforts to Reduce Crop Surpluses

Anew drive to reduce the huge volume of agricultural surpluses in the hands of the government is getting into gear under authority granted by the farm bill enacted late in May. President Eisenhower told Congress in a special message on Jan. 9, 1956, that the “mountainous surpluses” overshadowed all of “the many difficulties that aggravate the farm problem.” If it were not for the government's “bulging stocks,” he said, farmers would be receiving “far more for their products today.” Secretary of Agriculture Benson has estimated that surpluses hanging over the market reduced farm income last year by more than $2 billion.

Although there is disagreement as to the responsibility of high, rigid price supports for growth of the government's surplus ...

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