 Economic Cycles
Farm Economy
|
1932
Farm prices and income reach Depression bottom |
Farmers & the Land
|
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 |
Farm Machinery & Technology
|
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 |
Crops & Livestock
|
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 |
Transportation
|
1930s
Farm-to-market roads emphasized in Federal road building
1938
Motor Carried Act brings trucking under ICC regulation |
Agricultural Trade & Development
|
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 |
Life on the Farm
|
1930
13% of all farms have electricity
1936
Rural Electrification Act (REA) greatly improves quality of rural
life |
Farm Organizations & Movements
|
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 |
Agricultural Education & Extension
|
1935
Bankhead-Jones Agricultural Research Act more than doubles Federal
support of extension work |
Government Programs & Policy
|
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 |
|
