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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Public programs for agriculture challenge social scientists. How do public aids to agriculture affect the economic freedom of farmers? Can losses of economic freedom be balanced by gains in political self-determination through farmers sharing in the adoption and management of public programs for agriculture? Is governmental power conveyed to farm organizations whose leaders (however “broad-gauged” and public-spirited”) lack institutional responsibility to the public? Notwithstanding mutual interdependence of various aspects of the “farm problem,” is there a tendency toward splintering public policy among separate agencies in different commodity fields and among conservation, educational, regulatory, research, and credit agencies? Can the content of public policy be divorced for research from the process of policy formation and execution? Can federalism survive the vigorous development of regulatory programs administered from Washington? Contrarily, does federalism introduce factors which tend to defeat administrative responsibility in federal agencies? Is it possible for publicly-supported research freely to probe controversial issues raised by public policy?
Such questions are increased in pertinence by current circumstances. Major re-directions of farm programs seem in prospect. The Committee on Agriculture in the House of Representatives is holding the first comprehensive hearings on agricultural policy since 1937. Meanwhile, Congress has authorized an expanded research program for agriculture which in itself may embody a marked shift in policy.
Consider the implications for social science of the Hope-Flannagan Act (P.L. 733, 79th Congress). While including important traditional elements, the measure reflects the judgment that the country was thrown into ill-conceived regulatory programs in the 1930's and the assumption that redoubled research into the entire production and distribution process will discover ways to construct public policy which would be at once less arbitrary and more effective than New Deal measures. The challenge to the natural and social sciences concerned with argriculture is clear and profound.
1 Possibilities of political science research under the act are canvassed in a note at the end of this article.
2 Round numbers, here and following.
3 For accuracy's sake, the CCC's authorization was raised to this figure in 1941. Appropriation figures for the 1930's are summarized in Hearings, Sub-committee on Agriculture, House Committee on Appropriations, fiscal 1942, pp. 112–113. Some research, of course, was provided by appropriations for “action agencies,” e.g., for the Coöperative Research and Service Division, Farm Credit Administration.
4 Several specific authorizations are earmarked for state experiment stations and require 50–50 matching by the states; other authorizations may, in the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture, be assigned to the states—if so, they must be matched. If full appropriations are made, $14,400,000 will be earmarked for the states by 1951, and an additional $20,000,000 (under Title II) will be available, much of which may go to the states. How much additional money would be required for matching purposes is difficult to say. In 1945, federal funds to state and territorial experiment stations totaled seven millions; non-federal funds, 21 millions. The national 3 to 1 ratio reflects considerable disparities in the states. For every federal dollar, California provided approximately $10; Indiana, $7; Wisconsin, $5; New York, $8; etc. But Arizona and Georgia provided only $1.50; South Dakota and West Virginia, about $1.25; Idaho, less than $1.00; and Maine, Nevada, and New Hampshire, about 40 cents. Hence considerable additional state appropriations (or other contributions) would be required. See Hearings, Agricultural Subcommittee, House Committee on Appropriations, fiscal 1947, pp. 436–437. See also Hearings, Committee on Agriculture, H. of R., 79th Cong., 2d Sess., Serial M, “Agricultural Research,” pp. 22–24. The latter will be cited as Hearings, Agric. Research, 1946.
5 The background and scope of the act are reviewed in Hearings, Sub-committee on Agriculture, House Committee on Appropriations, fiscal 1948, Part I, pp. 210 ff.
6 But see the discussion of Title III below with respect to the committee of eleven.
7 The Secretary has named E. A. Meyer as his representative and to be chairman of the committee. Other members are: H. E. Babcock, chairman, Cornell University board of trustees; Fred Bailey, National Grange legislative counsel; Robert R. Coker, vice-president, Coker's Pedigreed Seed Company (South Carolina); John H. Davis, executive secretary, National Council of Farmer Coöperatives; Charles F. Kettering, general manager, General Motors research laboratory division; C. W. Kitchen, executive vice-president, United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association; Albert K. Mitchell, co-owner of the Bell ranch, New Mexico; President James G. Patton, National Farmers Union; President Walter L. Randolph, Alabama Farm Bureau; Dean H. J. Reed, Purdue University School of Agriculture; and W. Kerr Scott, North Carolina commissioner of agriculture. The committee met in December, 1946, and February and April, 1947; although Mr. Babcock has been ill, members, with the exception of Mr. Kettering, are actively participating. The advisory committee stands at the apex of a hierarchy of committees. At the bottom are twenty commodity committees; over these are general commodity committees (livestock, fruits and vegetables, etc.), and four functional committees (transportation, storage, shipping, and foreign trade); next below the committee of eleven is a committee on utilization, composed of chairmen of the general commodity committees, of the functional committees, and representatives of nutritionists and “the public.”
8 Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, pp. 84, 172Google Scholar.
9 Suspicion of the Secretary's position underlay the struggle over the proposed reorganization of the Production and Marketing Administration of the USDA in the autumn of 1946; it is reflected also in the Flannagan Farm Credit and the Bankhead-Flannagan Fertilizer bills in the 79th Congress. See also the Report of the Coöperative Milk Producers Federation for 1945, p. 15.
10 For further discussion respecting influence upon USDA research, see the writer's “The Bureau of Agricultural Economics Under Fire; A Study in Valuation Conflicts,” Jour. of Farm Economics, Aug., 1946. The discussion is carried further in a sequel which considers the problem of “Programmatic Research and Agricultural Policy,” ibid., May, 1947. For additional documentation of specific pressures, especially by commodity organizations, on state experiment stations, see Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, pp. 37–70, 224 ffGoogle Scholar.
11 Hearings, op. cit., p. 41. He added later, however: “Research in agriculture can do even more to help the farmers in the years ahead.”
12 Ibid., p. 83. In the context it is clear that the reference is to marketing research.
13 Ibid., p. 143, and compare the letter of Dean H. J. Reed of Purdue, answering the contention of a state commissioner of agriculture that “the state experiment stations haven't done research in marketing and they won't.” Dean Reed explained the scope of marketing research in Indiana and appended a list of 27 experiment station bulletins, one station circular, and five extension bulletins on the subject. Ibid., pp. 225–226.
14 Methodological problems in marketing research are discussed in William H. Nicholls' article in the forthcoming volume edited by T. W. Schultz, New Research Vistas on Agriculture and Rural Life. Schultz, and Witt, Lawrence discuss Training and Recruitment of Personnel in the Rural Social Studies, (American Council on Education, Washington, D. C., 1941)Google Scholar.
15 Ideology and Utopia, translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils.
16 In this, he was strongly supported by C. W. Kitchen, now a member of the committee of eleven. Kitchen was moved by the importance of stability in funds for research; but his ideas as to the proper rôle of government are closely in accord with Mr. Hope's. See Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, pp. 142, 150, 158Google Scholar.
17 The Nation's Agriculture, Oct., 1945.
18 See the AFBF statement, Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, p. 209Google Scholar.
19 Congressman Zimmerman asked: “Do you think, or do you not think, that if we put that responsibility on the Secretary [i.e., the responsibility for seeing that marketing research is properly integrated and effectively prosecuted], Congress and the public would have a better chance to put their complaints in against the Secretary and say, ‘You have not done this?’ But if you set up this department, he can say, ‘You have set up this department. I am not responsible for what has been done. You have done it yourselves.’ He would be more or less tied.” Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, pp. 203, 205Google Scholar. See also Under-Secretary Dodd's remark: “Actually, when Congress sets up a special administration, the people that you put over in that administration feel that they are set up separate and apart from the rest of us folks, and it is hard to get the proper supervision and use of them. I feel that it would be much better if you told the Secretary to get the job done and allow him the leeway to set up an administration.” Ibid., p. 206.
20 See Dodd's testimony, pp. 183–206 of Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946Google Scholar.
21 In the controversy over the reorganization of the PMA in the fall of 1946, most of the state chairmen of the Field Service Branch joined in a vigorous protest. They urged, among other things, that Robert H. Shields's resignation as PMA administrator be accepted and that Mr. Dodd be appointed as acting-administrator, “until the confusion caused by the PMA reorganization can be straightened out, and a permanent PMA administrator with a similarly well-established record of public service to agriculture can be selected.” See National Union Farmer, Nov. 1, 1946, p. 3Google Scholar.
22 USDA organization for marketing and marketing research, however, remains controversial. Congressional dissatisfaction in this respect apparently influenced curtailment of research funds for 1948.
23 Anyone reading the testimony will agree that these remarks really convey Mr. Hope's attitude, even if, unfortunately, he did not make them and, therefore, the writer must make them for him! See Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, pp. 196–201Google Scholar, and 92 Cong. Record 9157, July 15, 1946 (Daily ed.).
There is a correspondence in the points of view of Mr. Dodd with respect to the creation of a separate agency for research and that of the Farm Bureau regarding Section 32 funds. Mr. Dodd was not questioned regarding Section 32 funds. The Farm Bureau, in Mr. O'Neal's statement, explicitly stated that it had no policy regarding the Congressional requirement of a separate research administration. This obvious difference can perhaps be explained as one of differing interests in certain institutional or administrative arrangements. Dodd clearly wanted to protect the Production and Marketing Administration. In the same manner, but in another connection, President Walter Randolph of the Alabama Farm Bureau strongly urged that Congress place provisions in the act that would prevent the establishment of new federal offices, either regional or within the states, for the prosecution of research. In this, Randolph was joined by some land grant college officials. The concern over the retention of administrative and institutional arrangements favorable to the Farm Bureau and the colleges is comparable with Dodd's concern to protect the Production and Marketing Administration.
Yet within, or in connection with, or behind, these issues there was the other issue here under discussion—the issue arising out of different points of view. It is notable that Mr. Hope's difference with the Farm Bureau over Section 32 funds was fundamentally based upon the same reason that made him argue with Dodd as to the organization of research. On both occasions, Hope was struggling against the same point of view—one which accepts the efficiency and inevitability of controls.
24 On this, see the interesting statement signed by representatives of the AFBF, the National Grange, and the National Council of Farmers Coöperatives at Buffalo, N. Y., Oct., 1946, AFBF, Official News Letter, Oct. 16, 1946. Cf. Summary of AFBF Resolutions outlining its 1947 legislative program, Hearings, Committee on Agriculture, H. of R., 80th Cong., 1st Sess., Feb. 7, 1947, pp. 38 ff., esp. p. 41, “Price Level Stability.” We may cite Mr. Hope's work on the Colmer Committee (Post War Economic Policy and Planning); see its 10th Report, House Report No. 2728, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., “Postwar Agricultural Policy.” See also Hope's praise of the report of the committee of the Land Grant College Association, “Post War Agricultural Policy” (1944), Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, p. 47Google Scholar.
25 See Mr. Hope's trenchant criticisms of the Agricultural Adjustment program for tobacco, in the writer's article, Journal of Farm Economics, Nov., 1946.
26 Hearings, Agricultural Research, 1946, p. 43Google Scholar, as revised by Director Clark in a letter to the writer, Feb. 11, 1947.
27 Including processors, distributors, and labor unions. Although these last are less influential in the formation of research policy for agriculture, it will be remembered that the Hope-Flannagan Act includes the integration of administrative programs.
28 “In the process of tapping the experts for their specialized knowledge and skills, the technical equipment of one profession provides the offset for the gaps in the capacities of the others. And for those many things which in a world not clearly-designed for full comprehension by man are beyond human knowledge, the lawyer always stands ready to provide precise formulae acceptable to the Supreme Court as unambiguous expressions of legislative intent.” Viner, Jacob, “The Short View and the Long in Economic Policy,” Presidential address, American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Mar., 1940, Part 1, p. 6Google Scholar.
29 In 1945, the National Coöperative Milk Producers Federation had seventy-four voting member units and several hundred sub-member units. The power of some of the constituent units, such as the Land O'Lakes Creameries, the Dairymen's League Coöperative Association, and the Pure Milk Association, is well known. One gathers that there are sharp differences among some of the member units. On the outside are powerful groups such as the National Association of Local Creameries. An idea of the difficulty of securing coöperation among such groups is gained from Black, John D., The Dairy Industry and the A.A.A., pp. 351–354Google Scholar.
The Dairy Committee of the American Farm Bureau Federation might be helpful in reconciling interests. This is especially significant in view of Director Clark's emphasis upon the need to consider dairy problems with reference to agriculture as a whole. Dairy has suspected the AAA production control program, fearing that acres shifted from cotton (for example) would be turned to pasture and feed crops, thus raising dairy production; hence the restrictive Boileau amendment to the AAA of 1938—a monument to sectional vested interests. To give another example, John Brandt of Land O'Lakes told Congressman Zimmerman that he was interested in cotton “because I don't want you to go into the dairy business.” Hearings, Colmer Committee, op. cit., on Agriculture and Mining, p. 1397. Similarly dairy and corn have sharply disagreed over the AAA program; see the important debate in Congress on Andresen's proposed amendment to the bill raising the Commodity Credit Corporation Loan rates to 85 per cent of parity. Said Representative Dircksen, “ … it does not require any omniscience to perceive how skill-fully this amendment… would just raise hell with the Corn Belt,” 87 Cong. Record, 3413 ff. (1941)Google Scholar. Now, as Galbraith ably demonstrated (Fortune, June, 1944), the American Farm Bureau Federation made its mark in the 1930's as a union of cotton and corn—the first successful one in history. But very recently, AFBF has grown markedly in the North Central dairy regions. Thus this organization might be forced by its very make-up to approach a reconciliation of the interests of its members, in and out of the dairy industry.
30 It is hardly more cumbersome than the procedures for the evocation of much major agricultural policy; for that matter, it is no more involved than the present structure of Hope-Flannagan committees.
31 JFE, May, 1947. The awe inspired by the invocation of “duplication and overlapping” should not obscure the need for continued division of authority in so important a field as research. Moreover, the state of scientific controversy ought to be recognized as precluding a blueprint. For example, economists are agreed neither as to the nature of farmers' responses to prices of dairy products nor—a somewhat different question—as to the general effectiveness of prices in allocating resources. Important differences exist as to methodology for such inquiries.
32 An experiment station director writes, regarding more extensive comments on this point in an earlier draft of this paper: “This seems to me to be the most important factor needing emphasis in our plans for the research to be supported with Flannagan-Hope funds.”
33 Reflections on the Revolution in France (Harvard Classics, Vol. 24), pp. 188–189Google Scholar.
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