How to Solve the Farm Problem

The farm bill sent to Congress on February 16 presents the first definite indication of the approach of the Kennedy Administration to the farm problem. Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman and his economic adviser, Professor Willard W. Cochrane, offered a program radically different from that recommended by former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra T. Benson—but Benson was forced by Congress to administer a program not to his liking, and the new program being offered contains little or nothing that is different from past programs approved by Congress. Taken as a unit, it is simply a composite of past programs—programs hardly known for their success. Something new is needed.

In November 1960, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress published a report entitled “Economic Policies for Agriculture in the 1960s: Implications of Four Selected Alternatives.” This report was prepared by five competent agricultural economists. However, the “alternatives” considered in the report were assigned to the economists, through no fault of their own, on the basis of “political feasibility”; a criterion that largely rules out anything very new. And the seeds of Freeman’s legislative proposals may be found in the Report’s pages.

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Robert Haney Scott

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The farm bill sent to Congress on February 16 presents the first definite indication of the approach of the Kennedy Administration to the farm problem. Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman and his economic adviser, Professor Willard W. Cochrane, offered a program radically different from that recommended by former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra T. Benson—but Benson was forced by Congress to administer a program not to his liking, and the new program being offered contains little or nothing that is different from past programs approved by Congress. Taken as a unit, it is simply a composite of past programs—programs hardly known for their success. Something new is needed.

In November 1960, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress published a report entitled “Economic Policies for Agriculture in the 1960s: Implications of Four Selected Alternatives.” This report was prepared by five competent agricultural economists. However, the “alternatives” considered in the report were assigned to the economists, through no fault of their own, on the basis of “political feasibility”; a criterion that largely rules out anything very new. And the seeds of Freeman’s legislative proposals may be found in the Report’s pages.