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1930's Farming Challenges

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In the 1930’s farming and agriculture in general caused a lot of challenges to the American society. The Great Depression was at its peak, America was in the middle of the Dust Bowl, and everyone was tight on money including the upper class of The United States. In the 1930’s – 1940’s it was very common to see kids working on family farms, and running businesses outside of their homes to help put food on the table. In our day and age, it is very uncommon to see kids and teens out working in the agricultural industry because of corporate businesses. When the Corporate and Cooperative businesses started taking over sole proprietorship companies, kids and teens started working less in the industry because they had no family ties into the …show more content…

All I had was 158 acres split between two fields, that I rented from a guy in Newdale, Idaho, for $40/acre. I did not know what to do next, and for some reason I had the stupid idea that my grandpa would not help me. There were multiple other challenges as well, like where I would get the money, or where I would get the equipment, and the resources/experience compared to other farmers, and I was attending The National Boy Scout Jamboree. This summer I attended the Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia. I had rented my land and gotten ready to farm and, because of family tradition, I was supposed to go to the Jamboree. I was trying to sort out in my brain on how I was supposed to farm and go on a three week trip across the country or; I couldn’t make it work so I was going to cancel farming, that’s when my grandpa stepped in and said he would help me out no matter what the problem was, and that this time he would watch over my crop and fields while I was …show more content…

I’m very grateful that I got to learn more about the farming trade from people who had more experience than I do. I look forward to learning more about how to raise different crops and possibly branching out to more than one field. I also am very grateful that I got to bond with some very special people so that I could prove to them that one day I could take over the family farm so that it doesn’t get sold off to a corporate farm that won’t care about the history of the land or the land in general. I learned a lot this summer thanks to some very special people in my life as well. I learned from tons of opportunity, challenges, emotions, and tons and tons of

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Before the 19th century, farming was done by hand and by using small tools. The Market and Industrial Revolutions brought about lots of new inventions that benefitted agriculture. Very few people changed American agriculture more than Cyrus McCormick did in the 1800’s. His invention, the McCormick mechanical reaper, revolutionized farming by putting together many parts involved in harvesting crops into one machine. The mechanical reaper was a revolutionary farming tool that saved effort and time for farmers by allowing them to more efficiently harvest and cut

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Between 1865 and 1900 American agriculture was changed through things like, government policy, technology, and economic conditions. Through 1865 and 1900, the market of agriculture experienced political adjustments in management of the land by the government whom increased prices and controlled land sales. Government also regulated economic changes with the debut of up and coming equipment and technology that greatly influenced the growth of the farming business. Many farmers reaction to the decline in agriculture due to the political and economic alterations was to become more involved in government and politics in order to favor laws that would benefit the agriculture society.

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Farmers of the late 19th century faced several struggles as they attempted to feed themselves and a growing nation. Though they were undeniably crucial to the country, the country often abandoned them to fend against their problems themselves. These desertments lead to the creation of several movements, such as The Grange, and of political parties such as the Populists. The challenges of American farmers were often intertwined and difficult to get to one cause of the problem. Increasing railroad use and inflated prices hurt the farmers tremendously, which then lead to widespread debt and the cry for silver to be used in the money standard, which then resulted in overproduction of goods to try to overcompensate for the burgeoning debt, but only made it worse.

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Farm technology made a lot of progress from 1890-1920. Before this time, all the farming was done by hand. There were many inventions from wire to tractors to help make farming easier. Three inventions that really changed farming were gas tractors, cream separator and horse drawn combine. Gas tractors were created so that you didn’t have to use your horses so much and so you could pull more.

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They began defaulting on these loans which wasn’t good for the farmers or the local banks. This was also a huge problem for America because American agriculture employed nearly 30 percent of the workforce in the United States. In his New Deal, Franklin D Roosevelt brought forth the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) which provided relief to farmers by paying them to reduce production. This was important because it helped reduce crop surpluses and give farmers a source of income. Meanwhile, in western Canada, farmers were experiencing a disastrous and prolonged drought, which caused nearly 250,000 people to leave the prairies in the 1930s.

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The farmer's husband's futile search for work in ten counties underscored the widespread economic difficulties that plagued farming communities across the country. This firsthand account of deprivation and despair exposes the harsh realities faced by farmers during this era of change, as they grapple with crop failures, economic hardships, and the stark realities of poverty and hunger. The farmer's poignant lament serves as a poignant reminder of the immense challenges and uncertainties that farmers navigate as they struggle to adapt to the new realities of American agriculture. (Document I) Amidst significant transformation in American agriculture, as technological advancements, government policies, and shifts in economic conditions reshaped the landscape of the farming industry, the excerpt from the document sheds light on the debates surrounding land use during the late 19th century.

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The new prosperity, technology and glamour America boasted was only promised to the upper class and urban workers; “There was real prosperity in certain pockets of the economy in the 1920s,” as Historian David Kennedy put it. The agricultural sector were especially struggling the most during this decade prior to the market crash. During World War I, American farms were subsidized by the government to expand and mechanize in order to keep up with providing food for the army. After the War, low demands and over-production

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By being on financial aid, as a white farmer's kid, some would get teased at school if they went to school. Rich kids would tease them because they were so poor, and they needed help. Sometimes being a farmer’s kid was very rough during the 1930’s. Also, farmers killed 6 million pigs to try to reduce the supply, so they could then sell them and get more money as a result of that. White farmers had it the worst during the 1930’s due to unregulated crop

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Moi Banerjee 1/7/14 CP: 1 APUSH DBQ Technology, government policy and economic conditions changed the American agriculture drastically in the period 1865-1900. Technology increased hugely over the years but the prices were outrageous to the agriculture society. Because farmers could not afford anything, they lived in poor conditions. Although the farmers were the “front-face” of the society and provided everything for the country, people were forgetting about the, and they were not being represented enough in the government and its policy.

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The environmental and economic conditions that impacted the wheat farmers of the Saskatchewan in the 1930’s was the value due to war and weather condition. The prairies were heavily reliant upon wheat farming, during World War I was a good industry; the price of corps had risen drastically allowing Farmers to make profit, however after the war the value of crops declined rapidly, making the farmers broke. In a matter of years, the issue grows bigger; farmers lost their crops due to economic conditions. In 1928, weather started to affect farmers for instance: drought, high temperature, and swarms of grasshoppers were conditions that destroyed the crops across the prairies. In addition, within 1935 the flat lands of the prairies were met with

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Crop production dried up during this time due to lack of rain and the dust storms that would plow through their cities. Without any crops farmers struggled to try and keep their farms. The African Americans’ experienced the great depression before the stock market crashed, when it did crash, they were hit much harder

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Before the New Deal farming as an industry was massively struggling facing low prices, banks reclaiming land and soil erosion and flooding. The New Deal brough the AAA which paid farmers to plough up ten million acres and kill six million piglets with the FCA making loans to a fifth of all farmers. This far reaching and significant change led to farmers income doubling between 1933 and 1939. Although this was hugely significant for the farmers it led to workers and sharecroppers being evicted due to lack of work to do and replacement with machinery. Overall, the New Deal was significant and far reaching to an extent as it fixed the prices in the farming industry and improved lives for all farmers however this was tainted by the harming of those who worked on the fields

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Prior to 1930, farmers had to deal with situations of the CPR monopoly, discriminatory freight rates, monopolistic elevator systems, and tariffs. To improve their situation, farmers used tactics by banding together forming various organizations to lobbying the federal politician for change. Another success in improving their situation was the new movement of the Progressive Movement. With this new movement, they achieved success by advocating for a new Farmer’s Platform later known as the New National Policy. The parallels between farming today and the situation faced by farmers in the early 1900s would still be labour intensive in seeding in the spring and harvesting in the fall.

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The “dirty 30s” was not the time to be a farmer. The Great Plains were very unpredictable when it came to weather and natural disasters. Farmers were constantly battling against mother nature’s tragedies. Because machinery was not very advanced farmers and ranch hands spent numerous laboring hours in their dying fields. Crop prices also plunged to an ultimate low during this time.

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However, this industry is not well regulated by the government as it promotes slavery and other unfair situations for the workers. The workers that work on the plantations farms work an average of 12 hours a day. The youngest workers are around 8 years old. More than half of these kids can’t attend school because their families usually can’t pay for the basic needs of living like food. Therefore, parents send their kids to work on farms to help provide for their families (Refworld).

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