borhood of 800 million pounds per year to 1,200 million pounds for the current year. It is anticipated- Mr. POLK. In other words, there has been a substantial increase in the consumption of milk due to the school-lunch program? Mr. KRIESEL. Very substantial increase, sir. It is anticipated further that as the program gets further along and better set up, that in the next year there will be a larger increase still. Mr. ABERNETHY. We have on this committee, and I think fortunately so, Representative Anfuso, who represents a large consuming area in New York City. Naturally he and his constituents are interested in this program from the position of the consumer. I would like to ask this question: Last year on April 1, price supports on all milk dropped from 90 percent of parity to 75 percent of parity. Can you tell us, please, wehther or not that resulted in the delivery of milk to the door of his constituents at a cheaper price? Mr. KRIESEL. I do not have the exact figures here but as I recall, there was, just prior to that change in price level, a moderate price war in New York City so that I believe the reduction shown for New York may not have been as much as the reduction otherwise would have been. We can get the complete data. Mr. ABERNETHY. You have reference to the price war. You testified a few moments ago that there was a national drop of 0.4 of 1 cent, that is, a drop from 23.4 to 23 cents. That is the national average. And you stated that some of that drop of 0.4 of 1 cent was as a result of price wars and other factors. What I want to know is-and what I think all of us on the committee would like to knowwhether or not the consumer who is purchasing fluid milk, has actually profited from this drop in price supports. I have not been able to find from your testimony that he has. The national average drop was only 0.4 of 1 cent. You have not said that was the result of a drop in price support. You said it was the result of an accumulation of things. The reason I ask that question is that the consuming people have been lead to believe that they have been saved a lot of money on their grocery bills and on their milk bills. I just would like for somebody to lay it out on the table and let us really see how much they have saved. Mr. LAIRD. I hope that Mr. Anfuso's constituents are also interested in the products produced in my district which are cheese and some butter. I know they are. And I would like the prices supplied for cheese and butter, too, in the New York area. Mr. KRIESEL. We can supply all of those data for the New York area, and moreover, we can submit data on retail price changes for quite a large number of city markets over the country so that we could give to the committee a representation across the country of what the change at retail has been. (The information referred to is as follows:) New York City: Retail prices, specified dairy products, 1953-55 Mr. ABERNETHY. You may proceed with your statement. Mr. KRIESEL. This is an increase of about 6 billion pounds of milk equivalent, or 5 percent. Accounting for the increase of 6 billion pounds was butter with 2.6 billion pounds milk equivalent; American cheese, 1.1 billion pounds and fluid milk and cream and several minor uses 2.5 billion pounds. A few other products showed slight decreases. The gross quantity purchased by the Department of supporting dairy markets in 1954-55 was equivalent to 54 billion pounds of milk compared with approximately 11 billion pounds in the 12 months ended March 31, 1954. On the basis of current levels of output and of consumption, it appears that the surpluses that will be offered to the Department in the current marketing year will show another substantial decrease. The tables are as follows:) Year Number of milk cows on farms 1 Production per milk COW 2 TABLE 1.-Selected background data concerning the American dairy industry, 1920-04 Thousands Pounds pounds Million Million pounds Million Million Million Dollars Cents dollars Percent Percent Percent Percent Pounds Pounds pounds 1925.. 21, 503 4, 218 90, 699 26, 830 30, 417 63, 517 2.38 42. 4 1,515 13.7 93 99 95 783 790 1926.. 21, 312 4,379 93, 325 27, 707 32, 123 66,227 2.38 41.6 1, 566 14.8 97 100 91 795 807 1927.. 21, 191 4, 191 95, 172 28, 600 33, 356 68, 520 2.51 44.5 1,685 15.7 101 106 88 800 801 1928_. 21, 223 4,516 95, 843 30, 367 32, 814 69,899 2. 52 46. 1 1,756 16.0 97 104 91 795 793 1 Average number during year, heifers that have not freshened excluded. 2 Excludes milk sucked by calves and milk produced by cows not on farms. 3 For 1950 and earlier years includes also cash receipts from farm-churned butter sold. 4 Based on cash receipts from dairy farming, excluding production payments, 1943-46, 5 12-month simple averages of milk and butterfat prices as percentages of annual parity prices. Parity prices computed using formula specified in Agricultural Act of 1949 and revised index numbers. This formula became effective Jan. 1, 1950; data for earlier years are shown only for comparative purposes. 6 Published in Agricultural Prices as "parity ratio" (1910-14 equals 100). 7 Per capita production computed on basis of total population July 1; per capita con- 8 Whole milk equivalent of butter, cheese, and evaporated milk. Includes production payments. 10 Preliminary. TABLE 2.-Utilization of milk for fluid purposes and for specified manufactured products as a percentage of total milk production, United States, averages 1925–29, 1935-39, and 1945-49, annual 1950-54 2 Farm and nonfarm fluid consumption. 3 Includes dry cream, malted milk, dry part-skim milk, dry ice-cream mix, and cottage cheese; also residual, including miscellaneous minor uses; imports, exports, and year-end carryover of milk and cream, as well as any inaccuracies of independently determined production and use estimates. TABLE 3.-Per capita consumption of major dairy products, 1910–541 1 Civilian consumption only, 1941-54. 2 Includes cream in terms of whole milk equivalent. 3 Excludes full-skim American cheese and cottage, pot and bakers' cheese. Total unskimmed, case and bulk goods. 5 Product weight. Not available. 7 Less than 0.005 pound. Preliminary. |