Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 18, Number 9, DeMotte, Jasper County, 23 January 1948 — TRACE MEAT LACK TO HIGH GRAIN PRICES [ARTICLE]

TRACE MEAT LACK TO HIGH GRAIN PRICES

Assert Farmers Sell Grain At Hightide Prices Rather Than To Feed It Meat shortages and even higher xncat prices can be expected if grain prices continue at their present record levels or advance, Henry H. Green, president of the Grain and Feed Dealers’ National Association, said here yesterday. Green declined to predict further increases in grain prices but said there appeared little likelihood there will be any significant reductions. Record grain price levels already are resulting in fanners beginning to sell their grain rather than to use it to fatten poultry and livestock, he said. “They know what they’ve got ahead when they sell their grain as grain. They don’t know what they’ve got when they do it the other way,” he said. Some fanners are selling as much as half their breeding stock, he said, because they find the feed necessary to maintain it properly too costly. Liquidation of livestock and poultry is bound to result in a shortage of meat and consequent higher prices, he paid. “A big steer eats close to a half bushel of corn a day and a farmer’s going to hesitate before feeding it to him, at $2.75 or $3 a bushel,” he said. Green was in Indianapolis to address the 47th annual convention of the Indiana Grain and Feed Dealers’ Association, which opened yesterday in the Claypool Hotel. He blamed the present high grain prices almost entirely on Federal government buying for foreign consumption. Green charged the government is making “scapegoats” out of food and grain men and speculators to explain away high grain prices actually due to government purchases. “We’re not saying it’s wrong to buy grain to feed the people of Europe, but don’t blame us for the high prices which result,” he said. In his address to the convention, which is being attended by more than 500 persons, Green predicted further government efforts to control grain futures markets as a result of the current speculator investigation. “If someone has used inside government information for pur- ‘ pose of grain speculation,” he 1 said, “that person should be dealt with as quickly and as calmly as one would deal with any other law breaker.’’ Other convention speakers yesterday included M. Stahley Rukeyser, New York economist and journalist, and Phillip E. Legge, Uniondale, president of the Indi-” ana Association.