Economic Situation of Hog Producers

This investigation was made under the provisions of Senate Resolution 281, first session of the Seventy-second Congress. The resolution reads as follows: Resolved, That the Senate request the United States Department of Agriculture and the Federal Farm Board, jointly or severally, to investigate the economic situation of hog producers, the way in which various of proposed plans for farm relief (including the equalization-fee plan, the export-debenture plan, the domestic-allotment plan, the voluntary domestic-allotment plan, and such other plans as the two agencies may wish to include) would probably offset or improve the position of hog producers, both in the short and long runs, and to report thereon to the Senate by the next session of Congress. The study called for by this Senate resolution has been divided into three major parts: Part I contains a condensed statement of the present economic situation of hog producers and the major factors responsible for it. Part II describes the principal economic characteristics of the hog industry. This section is included for two purposes: (1) To explain in greater detail the principal developments leading up to the present hog situation, and (2) to describe supply and price relationships, a consideration of which is necessary in appraising the probable effects of the various relief plans. In Part III the export debenture, equalization fee, and domestic allotment plans are analyzed to determine as nearly as possible the extent to which each plan gives promise of correcting the present economic difficulties confronting hog producers or of offsetting at least in part the forces that have created the present condition of the hog industry.