AGRICULTURE: Another Helping

In the Department of Agriculture's granary of unfortunate experiments, no case is more spectacular than the 1948-50 effort to support the price of potatoes. The Government bought surplus potatoes for about $1.50 a hundredweight, dyed them deep blue, then sold them back to the producers at 1¢ a hundredweight for fertilizer or livestock feed. Net loss: $478 million. Net result: Congress passed a law prohibiting potato price supports.

But a Congressman's memory of the last fiasco is not always so clear as his vision of the next election. In January, after potato prices had slumped about 60% in a year. Congress passed a new law permitting "limited" supports. Then producers and their Senators (chiefly Idaho's Republican Herman Welker and Maine's Republican Margaret Chase Smith) began to urge the Department of Agriculture to have another helping of potatoes. Secretary Ezra Taft Benson firmly declined, suggested that growers cut production. But as prices fell and pressure mounted, Benson yielded. Last week he announced that the Department will 1) buy a limited amount of potatoes for school lunch and welfare use, 2) pay a subsidy of 35¢ a hundredweight to divert potatoes into starch and flour production, and 3) join producers in potato-sales-promotion.

Although Benson promised that he would not buy any potatoes to throw away (as was done in 1950), not even all potato growers were happy about his decision. As he was announcing his plan, he got a telegram from the Wisconsin Potato Growers Association: "Historically, any Government aid to potato prices has led to surpluses, public resentment and lowered per capita consumption. Please do not put the kiss of death on this next potato crop by providing any form of potato price support now."