-
The Smith-Lever Act begins subsidies to the land-grant colleges for agricultural research.
-
The Federal Farm Loan Act creates cooperative “land banks” to provide loans to farmers. Legislation during the 1930s expands this Farm Credit System, and today the FCS is a 50-state network of financial cooperatives with assets of $90 billion.
-
A rising protectionist sentiment is stimulated by President Hoover’s call to increase agricultural tariffs to help farmers. Congress responds with the Smoot-Hawley Act, which greatly increased tariffs on both farm and industrial products. Other countries retaliated and U.S. agricultural exports plunge 60 percent by 1933.
-
The Agricultural Adjustment Act, and subsequent New Deal laws, creates the forerunners of today’s major farm subsidy programs.
-
The Tobacco Control Act imposes quotas on tobacco production.
-
The Food Stamp Act creates what has become one of the largest welfare programs, a program that is known for major fraud and abuse. The program currently costs federal taxpayers more than $35 billion a year.
-
Congress changes course in farm policy with the passage of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act—the “Freedom to Farm” law.
-
The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act reverts to old-style subsidy increases and price supports as farm-state politicians reject the modest reform proposals of the Bush administration.
-
The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act expands farm subsidies, and it is enacted over a presidential veto.
-
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program balloons in size during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.