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Peace and prosperity
At the end of World War II,prosperity brought both opportunity and change to American agriculture.The Marshall Plan was enacted,which helped US farm exports skyrocket from around two billion dollars in the 1940's to nearly four billion in 1950.The Marshall Plan helped restore the European economy while feeding a lot of people.American farmers prospered due to record agricultural production and prices. -
Increases farm productivity
Low cost fertilizers, such as anhydrous ammonia, were widely used to renew the nutrients in exhausted soil. New pesticides and herbicides also led to even greater increases in farm productivity. By 1960 a farmer could produce sixty bushels of corn per acre, compared to only thirty bushels of corn per acre in the late 1940s. By 1961 one farmer could feed twenty-seven people, compared to feeding only eleven people in 1940. -
cold war inovation
The USDA also stepped up research during the war, in order to assist the military in solving the scores of new problems brought on by modern warfare. New fabrics were developed to help shield soldiers from burns, and to help protect wounds from infection. Dextran, a sugar produced from bacteria acting on cane or beet sugars, was developed to assist blood transfusions. The USDA’s civilian research programs also continued during the 1950s. -
Ag in the cold war
In 1950 Communist North Korea invaded South Korea.The United States re-armed,with agriculture playing a fundamental role.The U.S. military and Korean civilians needed new food supplies.In July,1950 President Truman ordered the U.S Department of Agriculture to increase agricultural production for the war.Part of the push to re-arm required farmers to increase or decrease production of specific farm products,The American public was again asked to conserve food supplies by growing gardens at home. -
Free market innovations
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953 he believed that government had imposed too many rigid federal controls on farmers that bottlenecked the flow of business, and took away competition in agriculture. -
The Changing American Diet
American eating habits changed along with American lifestyles. In 1954 T.V. dinners were introduced and became an instant success. Fast food restaurants became popular after the first McDonald's franchise was bought in 1955. More and more prepared foods entered the marketplace while supermarkets began to replace the corner grocery store. The frozen food industry boomed as Americans bought larger refrigerator freezers and sought more convenience foods. -
Green evolution
America’s agricultural revolution was being exported to the world. This "Green Revolution" began in 1946 when USDA agronomist S. Cecil Salmon was working in war torn Japan. He discovered a small, or dwarf, variety of wheat with a heavy head of grain called Norin No. 10. During the next thirteen years Dr. Orville Vogel and other Department of Agriculture researchers bred many varieties of this wheat. -
First earth day
During the 1960s people became increasingly aware of the effects of pollution on the environment. In the early 60's, Dr. Rachel Carson condemned the widespread use of chemicals in the environment in her controversial book Silent Spring. Her 1963 testimony before Congress led to dramatic changes in the years ahead. The need to conserve and protect the environment became clearer to the American public. -
Food and Agricultural Act of 1962
The Food and Agricultural Act of 1965 was H.R. 9811 passed by the 89th Congress on November 3, 1965. According to govtrack, this was “An Act to maintain farm income, to stabilize prices and assure adequate supplies of agricultural commodities, to reduce surpluses, lower Government costs, and promote foreign trade -
Girls allowed to join the ffa
The constitution of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) was revised in 1969 to include women among its membership. At a national FFA convention in 1930, delegates voted specifically to exclude females from becoming members, and denied their contributions made in the field of agriculture for over a century. Women worked to prove themselves during World War I and World War II. -
Food for the hungry
By the 1970s the total farm output of the United States had increased by more than fifty-two percent since World War II, with six percent fewer acres of land in production and sixty percent fewer hours of labor required. Farmers made up less than five percent of the United States labor force, yet they fed the rest of the nation and many of the people of the world. -
The goal to en world hunger.
Overall, 1950 to 1975 was the most dramatic period for agricultural change and progress that the nation had seen. The success of American agriculture during this period of change made it possible for the U.S. to turn its energies to other scientific and technological achievements.