On July 22, 1971, the subcommittee initiated the hearings, noting that "the problems of the most severely disadvantaged people in rural America--migrant and seasonal farmworkers--cannot be described, much less solved, unless examined in the light of the larger difficulty in agricultural America--rural poverty." Questions set forth at this hearing included: (l1) To what extent did rural poverty exist--and why did it persist? (2) What had the mechanization of farming done to, or for, the social and economic fabric of rural America? (3) Had small farmers and farmworkers, in the wake of rapid changes in American agriculture, been effectively shut off from the benefits and safeguards which wcrkers in other industries enjoyed? (4) Had the advent of "agribusiness" (the rise of corporations and conglomerates as agricultural powers) helped to alleviate or aggravate rural poverty? (5]Was "agrigovernment" (characterized by massive support programs for agribusiness) meeting its respcnsibility to all the people and institutions in rural America? and (6) What were the common interests of small farmers and farmworkers in the face of political and economic forces which controlled their lives, sometimes making them victims of poverty, but which lay beyond their control? On September 21 and 22, the economic alternatives remaining in rural America were explored. (NQ)