BETTER NUTRITION FOR ALL-BETTER MARKET FOR FARMERS
Aiken, George & Follette, Bob La
Our Food Allotment Plan Is The Democratic Way To Achieve Better Nutrition For All—Better Market For Farmers By GEORGE AIKEN and BOB LA FOLLETTE IN the years ahead, the greatest single problem of...
...that is, for better diets, and larger markets for farm products...
...The amount contributed by the Government would be used to buy additional food...
...At the same time, Federal funds must be used in the most effective way to raise levels of nutrition and improve farm markets...
...This Council should be made up of distinguished scientists, within the Government and outside...
...Operation of the program could be relatively simple...
...In that case, a family of 4 could buy food coupons worth $60...
...Running a successful food allotment program will be a large administrative job-one that cannot be coped with overnight...
...But if its income were $150, the family would have to pay $60 for $60 worth of coupons, and therefore would find no advantage in participating...
...If the family income were $125, it could buy the same number of coupons for $50...
...The second step is to determine the value of the low-cost adequate diet periodically at current retail food prices...
...in bad times, it would expand and counteract the tendency toward shrinking markets...
...An estimated 2Yz to 3 million families this year would gain by participating in the food allotment program, because 40 per cent of their incomes is not enough to buy proper food for the household...
...Of course, that would depend on the Nation's level of prosperity and the number of eligible families who chose to participate...
...In carrying out the third step, needless red tape that would limit the effectiveness of the program must be avoided...
...No matter how small its income, no family may obtain coupons for less than a fourth of their face value...
...Of course, it would not work exactly this way in all instances...
...It is an effort to put a floor under levels of nutrition for the Nation's families and to insure a large and stable market for food...
...Except for the possible earmarking of a limited number of coupons, families would be free to exchange them for any foods they wished...
...Any family would be eligible to buy coupons by paying the required percentage of its income...
...A simple declaration of income, similar to that required in connection with the Federal income tax, would be sufficient...
...This level of output is more likely to go up than go down in the future, even after emergency war and foreign relief needs have ceased...
...How would the food allotment program affect the Nation's levels of diet...
...Whether we achieve national full employment after the war or not, the process of industrial conversion is going to bring unemployment problems in many areas...
...It is not, in the ordinary sense, either a "welfare" or a "farm relief" measure...
...These families need assistance now for the sake of their own health and of the morale of sons, fathers, and brothers in the service...
...This action could be taken either in the interest of farmers at times when particular products of nutritive value were, in surplus, or of the health of consumers in areas where increased consumption of certain foods were especially desirable...
...A minimum charge is provided for the food coupons...
...How much would the program cost...
...First, the need of better nutrition is considerable, right now in the midst of war prosperity...
...Second, a start must be made now so that the program will be able to assist the much larger number of families that will need help later...
...Participation would not be limited to people in cities and towns...
...THUS, the Government's contribution would largely represent a net increase in family food consumption...
...This latitude is in keeping with the democratic character of the food allotment program...
...This would be of special importance in reorienting the agriculture of the cotton South and of other areas where new markets must be developed for food products...
...To some extent this is true even now, in the middle of record wartime employment and prosperity...
...What of the possibility that the program might provide Government food handouts to people who won't work...
...It is substantially different from the pre-war food stamp plan...
...An average family of 4 with an income of $100 a month now spends about $40 a month for food...
...For most of them, more purchasing power means better nutrition...
...So much for the details of the Food Allotment Bill...
...The number of such families is undoubtedly small, and the question of whether lack pf enough food is not a prime cause of shiftlessness is itself debatable...
...If it is to...
...Although great advances still are needed in methods of processing food and getting it to market, and much educational work still must be done in selection and preparation of food in the interest of better nutrition, lack of purchasing power remains the chief cause of improper diets among millions of families...
...The food allotment program is especially important as a means of carrying out the Government's commitment to support farm prices and farm income after the war...
...In some neighborhoods ration points are not being used up because people can't afford as much food as they are entitled to buy...
...They are beginning to show up in a few places already and will spread widely during the next few months...
...In carrying out this guarantee, the market for farm products would be greatly broadened, thus strengthening farm prices and increasing farm incomes...
...Demand for wheat and some other commodities would be stimulated only a little, if at all...
...Perhaps these difficulties will be localized and temporary...
...The bill provides for the appointment of a Council on Nutrition...
...Shall we reach this balance by a compulsory crop reduction program to reduce supply or by a voluntary food consumption program to raise demand...
...This Council will advise on any nutritional aspects of the program, including the effects of earmarking coupons...
...The Government would be bearing the difference between the family's contribution and the face value of the food coupons...
...This would be in marked contrast to the food stamp plan, which in almost every area was limited to families receiving public assistance...
...We cannot long avoid a balance between supply and demand...
...Food production last year was more than a third higher than the average for the 5 years before the war...
...ANOTHER special provision would make it possible to earmark up to one-third of the coupons for special foods or groups of foods...
...This cost, on a yearly basis, would be known as the "food allotment...
...The net cost to the Government—$20 a month—would in this ease just equal the increased value of food consumed...
...This is a new kind of program...
...Thus, while the value of the food coupons remained fixed, the amount that a family would pay for them would be determined by its money income...
...Farm incomes would be strengthened even more, by the increase in marketings...
...Many of the producers of commodities not directly affected by the food allotment program would benefit through increased opportunity to shift to production of foods whose demand was stimulated by the food allotment program...
...Purchases of other foods, such as grains, fats and oils, and sugar, would have remained about the same...
...Unless active measures are taken, we can expect that, even with full employment, American families will be going hungry while American farmers are looking for places to sell their products...
...Sometimes the increased food consumption might be a little less than the Government contribution, but, in general, the Government money would be used for food...
...What could farmers expect in the way of better prices and incomes...
...Many families living on pensions or small wages, like retired couples, unskilled workers, families with many small children unable to migrate to war production centers, have not benefited from the general rise in wages under the war effort...
...As an additional safeguard, employable male participants may be required to register with an employment agency...
...but a special provision of the bill is a safeguard against such a misuse of funds...
...Our Food Allotment Plan Is The Democratic Way To Achieve Better Nutrition For All—Better Market For Farmers By GEORGE AIKEN and BOB LA FOLLETTE IN the years ahead, the greatest single problem of the Nation's farmers will be to find markets for all they can produce...
...Granting the need for the food allotment program over the long pull, why be in a hurry to start one now, when the demand for so many foods is greater than the supply...
...The Food Allotment Bill has special provisions for taking homegrown food into account...
...Some of them, of course, could best help themselves by raising more family food...
...they will be none the less acute...
...The first step is to determine scientifically the level of nutrition needed to keep an average person strong and healthy, and to translate that nutrition level into actual amounts of lower-cost foods...
...Price support programs for certain commodities in weak demand, and other mechanisms for guiding production in the best direction, encouraging soil conservation, and for other purposes, still would be needed...
...THE Food Allotment Bill is based on the conviction that adequate diets for all families and better markets for farmers are in the national interest, and that it is a national responsibility to assist consumers and farmers in achieving those ends...
...On the other hand, for the products that would be most affected—meat, milk, eggs, and poultry, fruits and vegetable's—farm prices would be strengthened substantially...
...The Food Allotment Bill would enable lower-income families to increase their food purchases, and thus improve their diets...
...Under the allotment program the Government would sell this family $60 worth of food coupons for $40...
...It lays equal emphasis on consumers' need for better nutrition and farmers' need for broader markets, in the belief that efforts to help either consumers or producers of food, independent of the needs of the other group, would in the long run be self-defeating...
...The National Food Allotment Bill, which we have introduced in the Senate, is designed to head off such an unfortunate situation...
...This earmarking must be done in a way that is consistent with good nutrition...
...accomplish its purpose 6 months or a year from now, the groundwork must be laid as soon as possible...
...The soundest way of doing this is by insuring a large and stable market for agricultural products...
...OBVIOUSLY, in either depression or prosperity, the food allotment program would be no cure-all for farmers...
...Its adoption would provide a new market for farmers, and the greatest single stimulus to better nutrition that any Government action has as yet supplied...
...The food allotment program not only would increase consumer food expenditures by about the amount of the direct Government contribution, it also would tend in many instances to strengthen food prices throughout the market...
...Had the program been in effect in 1942, for example, participating families probably would have bought 60 per cent more tomatoes and citrus fruit, 30 per cent more milk, meat, poultry, and fish, and substantially larger amounts of vegetables and other fruits, eggs, and potatoes and sweet potatoes...
...Many farm families are poorly nourished, too...
...The second way—and the way provided in this bill—is certainly better both for farmers and for consumers, and it would lighten the burden of price support operations...
...Again the best way to find out is to go back to what would have happened in the past...
...It would not in any sense be a relief program: no "means test" or long investigations by welfare agencies would he necessary...
...Additional measures to support prices of some farm products would, of course, be necessary, but if the food purchases of low-income families were maintained at a reasonable level, the problems of price support would be manageable...
...If the family had an income of $100 a month, it could get the coupons by paying 40 per cent of its income, or $40...
...Markets for cotton, tobacco, and other non-food products would not be affected...
...It has been estimated that a Government contribution of one billion dollars to a food allotment program in 1942 would have increased farm income from food products by about one and one-half billion dollars...
...As an alternative to earmarking coupons, special free stamps good for particular foods could be issued along with the regular coupons...
...This would be accomplished by offering any family an opportunity to buy for about 40 per cent of its income food coupons with a face value equal to the food allotments for all members of the family...
...Also it is likely that millions of the Nation's families will not be earning enough money to buy as much as they need of the right kinds of food...
...In good times, Government spending under the program would contract...
...There are 2 reasons why delay would be costly...
...The third step is to supplement the buying power of families that are not able to afford low-cost adequate diets...
...Participation would be entirely voluntary, and persons buying the coupons could use them at the store of any food dealer who had registered his desire to accept coupons...
...It should be started soon, in order to develop and perfect the necessary administrative details and to acquaint consumers and farmers with its opportunities before the problems of nutrition, farm surpluses, and price support become acute...
...However, studies of what probably would have happened in past years with such a program in effect indicate that the cost of the food allotment program might range between % billion dollars in times of prosperity to possibly 21/£ billion in times of depression...
...Under the proposed program, participating families would continue their normal spending for food...
...With less than full employment, the outlook for want in the midst of plenty would be far more serious...
...A family of 5 with an income of $150, however, would again benefit by buying $75 worth of coupons...
...It would say, in effect: "In this rich country with such great agricultural resources, every family, no matter how low its income may be, must have a chance to obtain at least a minimum adequate diet...
...One of the great merits of the program would be its tendency to level off the ups and downs of the business cycle...
...The basic principles of the food allotment program are simple...
...To meet these difficulties, the food allotment program utilizes the fact that on the average, lower-income families spend about 40 per cent of their incomes on food...
...For example, suppose the food allotment per person was $15 a month...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 27
