1929-39 Great Depression 1932 Farm prices and income reach Depression bottom 1930 Total population: 122,775,046; farm population: 30,455,350; farmers 21% of labor force; Number of farms: 6,295,000; average acres: 157; irrigated acres: 14,633,252 1932-36 Drought and dust-bowl conditions develop 1934 Executive orders withdraw public lands from settlement, location, sale, or entry; Taylor Grazing Act 1930-39 Commercial fertilizer use: 6,599,913 tons/year 1930s All-purpose, rubber-tired tractor with complementary machinery popularized 1930 One farmer supplies, on average, 9.8 in the United States and abroad; 15-20 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels (2 1/2 acres) of corn with 2-bottom gang plow, 7-foot tandem disk, 4-section harrow, 2-row planters, cultivators, and pickers; 15-20 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels (5 acres) of wheat with 3-bottom gang plow, tractor, 10-foot tandem disk, harrow, 12-foot combine, and trucks 1930-35 Use of hybrid-seed corn becomes common in the Corn Belt 1934 Thatcher wheat distributed; Landrace hogs imported from Denmark 1938 Cooperative organized for artificial insemination of dairy cattle 1930s Farm-to-market roads emphasized in Federal road building 1938 Motor Carried Act brings trucking under ICC regulation 1930-39 Agricultural exports: $765 million/year or 32% of total exports 1930 Hawley-Smoot tariff raises rates to prohibitive levels, prompting retaliation from other countries 1939 Technical agricultural collaboration with South American countries 1930 13% of all farms have electricity 1936 Rural Electrification Act (REA) greatly improves quality of rural life 1930 11,950 cooperative with 3 million members 1932-23 Farmers' Holiday movement stages strikes and blocks farm sales 1934 Southern Tenant Farmers Union formed to cope with sharecroppers displaced during the New Deal 1935 Bankhead-Jones Agricultural Research Act more than doubles Federal support of extension work Early 1930s First Federal assistance to school lunch program 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) initiates crop and marketing controls; Farm Credit Act 1935 AAA amended to provide marketing orders and continuing funds for removal of agricultural surpluses; resettlement Administration created to combat rural poverty, leads to 1946 Farmers Home Administration 1936 Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act follows Hoosac Mills decision 1937 Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act provides acreage allotments and quotas, ever-normal granary, price-supporting loans, regional research laboratories, and Federal crop insurance 1939 Food stamp plan begun   Next Decade >>
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