The past year has been marked by notable though not uniform improvement in
agriculture. The general purchasing power of farm products and the volume
of production have advanced. This means not only further progress, in
overcoming the price disparity into which agriculture was plunged in
1920-21, but also increased efficiency on the part of farmers and a
well-grounded confidence in the future of agriculture.
The livestock industry has attained the best balance for many years and is
prospering conspicuously. Dairymen, beef producers, and poultrymen are
receiving substantially larger returns than last year. Cotton, although
lower in price than at this time last year, was produced in greater volume
and the prospect for cotton incomes is favorable. But progress is never
uniform in a vast and highly diversified agriculture or industry. Cash
grains, hay, tobacco, and potatoes will bring somewhat smaller returns this
year than last. Present indications are, however, that the gross farm
income will be somewhat larger than in the crop year 1927-28, when the
total was $12,253,000,000. The corresponding figure for 1926-27 was
$12,127,000,000, and in 1925-26, $12,670,000,000. Still better results
would have been secured this year had there not been an undue increase in
the production of certain crops. This is particularly true of potatoes,
which have sold at an unremunerative price, or at a loss, as a direct
result of overexpansion of acreage.
The present status of agriculture, although greatly improved over that of a
few years ago, bespeaks the need of further improvement which calls for
determined effort of farmers themselves, encouraged and assisted by wise
public policy. The Government has been, and must continue to be, alive to
the needs of agriculture.
In the past eight years more constructive legislation of direct benefit to
agriculture has been adopted than during any other period. The Department
of Agriculture has been broadened and reorganized to insure greater
efficiency. The department is laying greater stress on the economic and
business phases of agriculture. It is lending every possible assistance to
cooperative marketing associations. Regulatory and research work have been
segregated in order that each field may be served more effectively.
I can not too strongly commend, in the field of fact finding, the research
work of the Department of Agriculture and the State experiment stations.
The department now receives annually $4,000,000 more for research than in
1921. In addition, the funds paid to the States for experimentation
purposes under the Purnell Act constitute an annual increase in Federal
payments to State agricultural experiment stations of $2,400,000 over the
amount appropriated in 1921. The program of support for research may wisely
be continued and expanded. Since 1921 we have appropriated nearly an
additional $2,000,000 for extension work, and this sum is to be increased
next year under authorization by the Capper-Ketcham Act.