1932 - Agriculture

Agriculture

Veterinarian B. L. F. Bang dies at Copenhagen June 22 at age 84, having discovered the bacillus (Brucella abortus) that causes contagious abortion in cattle (and undulant fever in humans).

Britain imposes tariffs and quantitative restrictions on many farm imports while subsidizing British farmers to help them survive the Great Depression. Parliament introduces imperial preferences to favor imports from colonial and Commonwealth countries, with special preference given to dairy products, meat, and wheat from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand at the expense of Denmark and Argentina. Canadian wheat receives preferential treatment, but only on condition that it be offered at no more than 6¢ per bushel above grain from other sources, and only if it originates in Canadian ports.

U.S. farm prices fall to 40 percent of 1929 levels as the Great Depression makes it harder for consumers to afford food. Wheat drops to below 25¢ a bushel, oats 10¢, and the total net income of Minnesota farmers is only 6 percent of what it averaged between 1929 and 1931. Canadian farmers have few grain crops other than wheat and take an even harder hit than their U.S. counterparts. Sugar falls to 3¢/lb, cotton and wool 5¢/lb.; the low price of cotton makes it impossible for tenant farmers in the South to obtain credit, and sheep ranchers in the western states go bankrupt.

Iowa Farmers' Union militants start a 30-day strike August 9 to protest low farm prices. "Stay at home! Sell nothing!" say union members, who smash the windshields and headlights of farm trucks they catch going to market and block highways with chains and logs to enforce their strike.

Dust storms begin on the drought-stricken southern plains of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas as drought persists (see 1931). Some 14 such storms are recorded, and farmers watch in dismay as high winds blow away dried-up topsoil that has taken 1,000 years per inch to build up (see 1933).