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Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report of the Commodity Credit Corporation

July 22, 1965

To the Congress of the United States:

Thirty years ago, the Congress brought into being the Commodity Credit Corporation. In transmitting the report of this Agency for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1964, as provided by section 13 of Public Law 806, 80th Congress, I feel it is appropriate to view, in summary, the three decades of the Corporation operations.

Over the past 30 years, the Commodity Credit Corporation has:

1. Enabled farmers to hold their crops for fair market prices.

2. Minimized the depressing effect of surpluses by holding them off the market.

3. Assured a stable flow of food to consumers, deterring inflationary pressures.

4. Created a sound base for banks and other lending institutions which supply the credit needs of farmers.

5. Provided in wartime the means of supplying our allies with food and fiber, and in the postwar period became the instrument which insured that food could also help keep the peace.

6. Acted as the mechanism for executing the Food for Peace program, the International Wheat Agreement and other similar international programs.

7. Supported the rapid expansion of agricultural exports.

During fiscal 1964, the Commodity Credit Corporation reduced its investment in farm commodity inventories by more than $380 million. The wheat inventory was reduced by about 275 million bushels, and the supplies of dairy products were brought down to manageable levels.

The Commodity Credit Corporation is a creature of legislation. Its ability to fulfill our objectives for the future is no greater than the strength of legislation enacted by the Congress. It can function best when farm commodity programs are responsive to the conditions which exist in the agricultural economy. If these programs are in tune with the times, the Commodity Credit Corporation can perform its proper functions for farmers and for the public.

The legislation which I proposed this year, and which is now before the Congress, will help the Corporation to carry forward the objectives it should fulfill in the coming decade. These objectives are:

To continue the financial progress of our farmers;

To further reduce the Corporation's costs by bringing stocks of farm commodities down to more manageable levels;

To assure an abundant supply of high quality, reasonably priced foods without fear of severe price fluctuations for our consumers;

To cushion the forces of the revolution in farm productivity which enable output to far exceed our capacity for use by balancing the growth in farm output with our ever expanding food and fiber requirements;

To use our abundance as a force for peace and progress;

To rely more upon the market place as the primary source of fair farm returns.

Instruments of public policy can weight the scales of economic justice on the side of those who are disadvantaged, but they should enhance--not supplant--the equal opportunity for each person to obtain a decent livelihood from our economic system.

The Commodity Credit Corporation has an important place among the instruments of public policy:

Without the programs for which it acts as fiscal agent, the income netted by farmers would decline by half. Without adequate income, the family farm system which dominates our agriculture would die.

Without family farms the vast abundance of food and fiber we all have come to expect as a natural condition of a highly productive economy would no longer be assured.

The Commodity Credit Corporation as a visible expression of our commitment to abundance continues to be a servant of all people. What began 30 years ago as an experiment to provide economic justice for the farmer has now become a tested instrument in the continuing experiment each generation performs to demonstrate the vitality of our democracy.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

July 22, 1965

NOTE: The report is published in "Summary of 30 Years' Operations of the Commodity Credit Corporation With Report of the President of the Commodity Credit Corporation, 1964" (Government Printing Office, 1965; 80 pp.).

The legislation before the Congress to which the President referred, the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965, was approved by the President on November 3, 1965 (see Item 597).

Lyndon B. Johnson, Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report of the Commodity Credit Corporation Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241394

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