Statement on a Program to use Surplus Foodstuffs to Feed the Unemployed

The President today announced a program to help correct one of the most flagrant maladjustments of American economic well-being. Through his action much of the oversupply of important foodstuffs and staples will be placed in the hands of the destitute unemployed who are living on the short shrift of public unemployment relief.

Following conferences with Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, George N. Peek, Agricultural Adjustment Administrator, and Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief Administrator, the President announced that the Agricultural Adjustment Administration is preparing to make further purchases of surpluses for distribution by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to the unemployed in the various States.

The announcement followed the recent allocation by Mr. Hopkins of 100,000,000 pounds of cured pork which had been processed recently from millions of hogs purchased from surpluses by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. The meat will go to the various State Relief Administrations for distribution to the unemployed on their relief rolls.

Additional products under consideration for similar handling include, among others, beef, dairy and poultry products, and products of cotton and cotton seed.

There are approximately 3,500,000 families now on relief rolls throughout the country. It is known that even with recent improvements in relief administration resulting in higher standards of relief, the amounts of food and clothing given the destitute are still inadequate. On the other hand, in large part, because these millions of potential consumers are not able to purchase a normal amount of commodities, huge surpluses of basic food products are glutting the markets and making their production unprofitable to farmers.

By using funds of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, supplemented by those of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and the nationwide network of State and local relief administrations for distribution, a real effort to bridge the gap between supplies and consumption will be made. In this way two major objectives of the Recovery Program will be promoted-feeding and clothing the unemployed more adequately and hastening the agricultural recovery.

It was emphasized that the commodities given the unemployed will be in addition to amounts they are now receiving, wherever they are now inadequate, for the purpose of giving them reasonable standards of sustenance. They will add to and not replace items Of relief already provided.

In removing the surpluses from the market, carefully applied safeguards will forestall any disturbance of the regular channels of production, processing, and distribution.

The President said he considered the program arranged between the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration one of the most direct blows at the economic paradox which has choked farms with an abundance of farm products while many of the unemployed have gone hungry. He has directed the departments concerned to expedite in every possible way their combined attack on the food surplus and hunger problems.

While this joint effort is being made to increase domestic consumption of surplus farm products, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration will intensify its program of preventing accumulation of farm surpluses so great that they cannot be consumed, but result only in ruinous prices to farmers, destroying purchasing power and aggravating rural and urban distress.