Agricultural Adjustment Act Essay

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers food assistance programs that help provide food for low to no income families. It is their goal to increase food security and reduce hunger by increasing access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education for low-income Americans (Caswell, 2013, para. 1). Some of the current nutrition assistance programs include “the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)”(Caswell, 2013, para. 1). SNAP will be the primary nutrition assistance program of the paper at hand. No matter how morally good it is to try to help reduce hunger and increase food security within the United States, there are still many questions regarding issues with SNAP. This paper will be discussing why there is such a strong support for the program, how it helps the United States as a whole, problems with the program, and why some people are against SNAP.

The Dust Bowl, battering the Midwest for nearly a decade with high winds, bad farming techniques, and drought, became a pivotal point in American history. The wind storm that seemed relentless beginning in the early 1930’s until its spell ended in 1939, affected the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and the broader agriculture industry. The catastrophic effects of the Dust Bowl took place most prominently around the Great Plains, otherwise known as the farming belt, including states such as Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, which were hit extraordinarily hard. Millions of farming acres destroyed by poor farming techniques was a major contributor to what is considered to be one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in American history. This period resulted in almost a decade of unstable farming and economic despair. Thousands of families sought government assistance in order to survive. Luckily, government aid to farmers and new agriculture programs that were introduced to help save the nation’s agriculture industry benefited families and helped the Great Plains recover from the Dust Bowl. Furthermore, the poor conditions in the farm belt were also compounded by the Great Depression as it was in full swing as the Dust Bowl began to worsen. In addition, World War I was also underway which caused a high demand for agricultural products, such as wheat, corn, and potatoes to be at its peak, which lured many people to the farm belt with the false expectation that farming

After the Civil War there were many factors that contributed the changes that occurred in farming in America. Among them was the drive for the South to renew and regain what had been lost due to the war. Leaders saw it as a time to diversify and turn towards industrialization. The Industrial revolution was underway and with it brought many new inventions that would lead to growth in the farming industry. The wide open space between the East and the West called “The Frontier” was open for homesteading. New immigrants with their farming knowledge and ability were flooding the East and West gates of the U.S. This was a time in American history when Americans

The increase in corn production and acreage that comes from FAIRA is yet another slap in the face to the American farmer. By allowing for increased corn production on top of the already surplus of corn that domestic farms already produce, the government is actively lowering the price of corn on the market, making it less profitable for farms to grow and forcing a lot of farms to close down. In the Great Depression era, the United States government under President Roosevelt took to subsidizing and buying up excess stores of corn to maintain crop prices and prevent the collapse of the farming industry in the United States (Pollan 49). This protects farmers and allows them to make a living while also providing reasonably priced crops to feed the country with. The Nixon administration began the trend of deregulation in the 1970s, preferring a free

In conclusion during the years 1865 and 1900 technology, economic and government policies changed american agriculture

Following the Civil War, a second industrial revolution in America brought many changes to the nation’s agriculture sector. The new technologies that were created transformed how farmers worked and the way in which the sector functioned. Agriculture expanded and became more industrial. Meanwhile government policies, or lack of them for a while, and hard economic conditions put difficult strains on farmers and their occupation. These changes in technology, economic conditions, and government policy from 1865 to 1900 transformed and improved agriculture while leaving farmers in hardship.

In an effort to help boost the economy, the government provided cheap federal farm policies which allowed many people to take on the job of farming. In order to maximize profit,

The era of the Great Depression was by far the worst shape the United States had ever been in, both economically and physically. Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and began to bring relief with his New Deal. In his first 100 days as President, sixteen pieces of legislation were passed by Congress, the most to be passed in a short amount of time. Roosevelt was re-elected twice, and quickly gained the trust of the American people. Many of the New Deal policies helped the United States economy greatly, but some did not. One particularly contradictory act was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was later declared unconstitutional by Congress. Many things also stayed very consistent in

The AAA aimed to restore purchasing power of American Farmers and balance the supply of crops by paying famers in return for a promise not to plant certain crops (US History17). Although the AAA was declared to be unconstitutional by Congress in 1936, it was modified and remained the basis for farming acts. In addition, AAA and similar acts made income generated by 50% higher than it was in 1932 (Rasmussen18). The last program that provided attempted to provide immediate relief to farmers during the Depression was the Resettlement Administration, created in 1935. However, unlike the FCA and AAA, the RA did not provide relief to struggling farmers. Aiming to relocate rural families to communities operated by the federal government, the RA was met with much opposition as it threatened to appropriate land. Only 95 camps were built and only 75,000 farmers benefited from the clean water and amenities that they provided (Legends of America13). The program was eventually taken in by the FSA, which worked to improve the lives of sharecroppers, and completely dissolved during World War I. The programs enacted to provide relief to farmers during the Depression, although not all successful, as a whole allowed millions of farmers to stay on their farms and continue making money during a historic

With many farmers having such high yields, there was an abundance of crops so the prices fell and a farmer had to plant more in order to have enough money to support their families. The Enlarged Homestead Act guaranteed 320 acres of land to farmers who were willing to take land that were considered to be marginal and could not be irrigated well. They plowed up the virgin soil and planted acres and acres of golden wheat, leaving the land vulnerable to the elements after the yearly harvest. The farmers also implemented the use of fossil fuel ran machinery that made it easier to plow up hundreds of acres in a short period of time, which exposed even more soil than what would have been open to the elements had the farming been done by an animal pulled plow. The massive influx of farmers because of that act caused major soil erosion which was made worse by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) restricted the production of crops. The AAA encouraged farmers to not only limit, but also to “destroy their crops” in an effort to help the economy (“Farm Relief”, 2002, p. 10). While the government attempted to support unsuccessful farmers, landlords took advantage of the opportunity to make a profit. The AAA’s scarcity program allowed for landlords in the cotton-growing regions of the South to force sharecroppers and tenant farmers off of the land (Watkins, 1970, p. 193). As some landowners were outraged at the thought of ruining their produce, others went through with the

“This Nation asks for action; and action now” (pg.92). Referring to the New Deal, included was living standards and to prevent future crisis. A goal was to get people back to work. One of the groups that were hit the hardest due to the Great Depression was Farmers. There was an overproduction of products and not enough people consuming or buying their products. Around World War I, prices of crops were very low and the farmers were not making any income, leaving the farmers in trouble when the depression rolled around. With the New Deal, FDR established Agricultural Adjustment Act and prices of crops were raised.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act in Great Depression Era in 1933 was a the United States federal law, part of the New Deal, which reduced agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land and to kill off excess livestock. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus in order to effectively raise the value of crops. This act represented a transformation about government’s role playing in the country. Before the period, the government only taxed import or export; it didn’t touch economy. But the AAA showed that government started to have power to change its economy.

The new production caused an increase in the need of workers, thus causing the unemployment rate to decrease. One way the New Deal was able to give jobs to the jobless was via the Civilian Conservation Corps. This program gave jobs to civilians between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five; they were planting trees, building dams, and stopping the erosion of the soil. By August of 1933, 300,000 men were at work. Roosevelt also aided the farmers through the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This act helped farmers meet their mortgages, which went hand in hand with the Home Owners' Loan Corporation. Through these acts the government used millions of dollars to try to relieve farmers' economic crises. But by doing this, Roosevelt caused an increase in the national debt.

It also had a side of effect of creating surpluses that only World War II would alleviate. Another down side was that these programs benefited the large farms and the little guy struggled to compete eventually selling their land to the bigger farmers (Conkin 2011). The little guys would have to find work elsewhere in the U.S. which was another problem the New Deal Programs tackled with some success.