Eggs Without Ham

Of all the anomalies which Congress created last week when it approved higher crop loans, greatest was the fact that it in effect legislated ham right off many a U.S. breakfast table. The hog has long been the piece de resistance of the poor man's diet. It is one of the major food products that England needs from the U.S. now. Yet last week Congress ruled that the nation should cut down on pork.

In the farm belt pork is known as corn-on-the-hoof. Until it is turned into meat, corn has no great commercial value as human food. Out of about 2.500,000,000 bushels harvested in the U.S. annually (compared to about 800,000,000 bushels of wheat), only about 10% goes into corn meal, corn syrups, starch, alcohol, breakfast foods, seed or the export trade. The rest either is fed to farm animals or becomes surplus.

Under the Administration's crop-loan policy, a staggering amount has gone into surplus. Originally set at 45-c- a bushel in 1933, the loan rate was upped to 57-c- in 1938, to 61-c- for the 1940-41 season. This meant that a floor -- always a little higher -- was built under the price at which the farmer could sell his grain in the open market. It also meant that frequently the farmer could get more for his corn by sealing it under Government loan than he could get by turning it into pork.

Thus the normal correlation between corn supply and hog production has broken down. Hog production fell from 85,892,000 in 1939 to 76,976,000 last year, an estimated 70,000,000 this year. Meantime corn supplies have risen, and the unused surplus has reached staggering highs: 694,804,000 bushels last Oct. 1, an estimated 750,000.000 bushels next October. Most of the surplus is in hock to the Government.

Under the Fulmer Bill, corn loans would be upped to 70.4-c- a bushel. Farmers will have still less incentive to turn their grain into pork, still more incentive to put it under Government seal.

At year's beginning Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard, urging farmers to raise more hogs to help feed England and support the U.S. defense effort, guaranteed them a hog price floor of $9 for 100 Ib. But with corn pegged at 70-c-, the problem will be not to keep hogs up to $9, but to keep them down to that figure. Net result of Congress' action last week: the U.S., with its greatest corn surplus in history, faces a shortage of pork--for all practical purposes the only thing corn is good for.

To speed development of synthetic rubber, Jesse Jones last week announced the Government would put up $5,000,000 to finance a new plant for each of the big four rubber companies. Projected yearly output: 10,000 tons--about 1/60th of U.S. rubber consumption today.

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