Farmers'+Struggles

Farms and farm workers were hit the hardest during the Depression. At the start of the Depression, a fifth of all families still lived on farms. In the first three years, farm income fell two-thirds. For example, in 1920 a bushel of wheat cost $2.94, then only $1 in 1929, and finally reaching 30 cents in 1932. Farmers were in debt so much, that a quarter of Mississippi's farm acreage was auctioned off to pay debts in one day ("Digital History").



One major problem was that farmers were growing too much. Yes, the worldwide crop production rose, but demand fell. For instance, less bread was eaten because the Europeans placed protective tariffs on it, making bread more expensive. Also, farmers had to grow more to pay off their debts. In 1932, farmers had to produce 2.5 times as much corn, 2.7 times as much wheat, and 2.4 times as much cotton, than they did in 1929 ("Digital History").

A story about farmers being in major debt would be the story of the Gudgers family, a white Southern family in Alabama. Their landlord gave them 20 acres of land, seed, a one-room house, a shed, a mule, and fertilizer every year. Plus, $10 every month. To pay him back, the Gudgers had to give him half of their corn and cotton crop and 8% interest on their debts. The family was $80 in debt in 1934 and the debts rose another $12 in 1935 ("Digital History").

Besides growing too much produce, farmers also faced the wrath of nature. In the South, boll weevils ate the cotton crop and in the Plains area, a major drought known as the Dust Bowl occurred. A Kansas county that produced 3.4 million bushels of wheat in 1931 only got 89,000 bushels in 1933. Due to debt and the lack of quality crop production, many farm hands were let go. Two-fifths of farmers worked on land not owned by them. These tenant farmers were evicted and many of them left for California. Because of this mass exodus, whole counties soon became empty. 2,811 homes were abandoned and 1,522 people disappeared in just one part of Colorado ("Digital History").

The New Deal came up with many programs to help farmers during these desperate times. It provided a rural electrification program, which meant that rural areas could share the "benefits of electricity and running water." This also led to Roosevelt creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to build twenty-one dams responsible for providing electricity to many farm families. Another program created to aid farmers was the Soil Conservation Service; this was to help farmers with erosion problems. The Farm Credit Administration was started to help relieve a little from farm foreclosures. The Commodity Credit Corporation allowed farmers to use "stored products as collateral for loans." Finally, the biggest help the New Deal offered was the Agriculture Adjustment Act (AAA) ("Digital History").

The Agriculture Adjustment Act tried getting a collaboration between the government and major producers. They believed the "allies would raise prices by reducing the supply of farm goods." The AAA also came up with the "domestic allotment" plan. This plan assigned quotas to each producer, however, participation was voluntary. The "farmers who cut production to comply with the quotas would be paid for land left fallow" ("Digital History").

Even with the little success the AAA had, it did not start out well. When the AAA started in 1933, the crops for the year had already been planted. Because of this the government paid over $100 million to farmers to plow under ten million acres of cotton. The government also bought and killed six million pigs. Only one million pounds of that meat was saved for those in need ("Digital History").

While the AAA did, in fact, raise farm incomes, it did not do much for sharecroppers and tenant farmers. These groups were also hit the hardest by the agricultural crisis. Incomes did double, but large farmers got most of the benefits. This caused more distress to the sharecroppers and tenants for several reasons. The biggest reason, however, was that large landowners could now purchase large machinery by using government payments. This increased crop yields and lessened the need for sharecroppers and tenants. One Mississippi planter actually had enough machinery to evict 160 tenant families. In the end, three million small farmers were forced to leave the land due to the New Deal programs ("Digital History").

As stated on the Digital History website, "For all its inadequacies, however, the AAA established the precedence for a system of farm price supports, subsidies, and surplus purchases that still continues more than half a century later" ("Digital History").