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The Great plains went thought a boom period when land speculators touted the miraculous advantages of farming wheat. Government and private encouraged the settlement and development of the region. Experts declared that the wet period they had been experiencing would continue. The "Great Plow -Up" began and wheat was planted. But the period ended. -
Life on the Farm in the 1930s wasn't like it is today. One humorous story highlights the deficiencies of living without certain household improvements so common to our twenty-first-century households: "I had a horrible choice of either sitting in the dark and not knowing what was crawling on me or bringing a lantern and attracting moths, mosquitoes, nighthawks and bats." The production of food and plants dropped because many people couldn't even afford to have the basic necessities. -
As the Summer of 1932 turned autumn,, the depression deepened. Frustrated and angry, Iowa farmers sponsored a Farmer's Holiday - a strike designed to keep all farm products off the market. The net income of farmers was less than one-third of what it had been in 1929, which meant they earned a lot less money. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the farmers' favorite presidential candidate because they believed that he would help them. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt promised farmers change through the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which tried to raise farm prices by reducing production levels. Cotton and wheat production declined until later in the 1930s because of the invalidation of the first act. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Farm Credit Administration (FCA) with an Executive order. This was designed to consolidate and streamline various federal efforts that dealt with farm credit into one administrative authority. On May 12, 1933, FDR signed the EMergency Farm Mortgage Act to provide lower interest rates and provide farmers with workable loan repayments. To further support strutting farmers, President Roosevelt signed the Farm Credit Act of 1933 on June 16th. -
The Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford G. Tugwell said, "We must study and classify American soil, taking out of production not just one part of a field or farm, but whole farms, whole ridges, perhaps whole regions... It has been estimated that when lands now unfit to still be removed from Cultivation, something around two million persons who now farm will have to be absorbed by other occupations." -
In 1941, the Military purchased 2 percent of the total food produced in the United States. That number continued to increase during World War II and peaked at 14 percent of food supply by 1944. -
The Agricultural Act of 1948 was created by the 80th Congress of the United States. This iteration or version of the farm bill included three sections or titles- Title I: 1949 Price Stabilization, Title II: Amendments to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, and Title III: Miscellaneous. This new version of the farm bill addressed prices of crops such as cotton, wheat, corn, tobacco, rice, and peanuts. The bill also made several changes or amendments to the 1938 bill.