1934 - Agriculture

Agriculture

A Farm Mortgage Financing Act passed by Congress January 31 creates a Federal Farm Mortgage Corporation to help farmers whose mortgages are being foreclosed (see 1931). Dust storms will soon bankrupt more farmers.

A Crop Loan Act passed February 23 authorizes loans to farmers to tide them over until harvest time.

Dust storms in May blow some 300 million tons of Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma topsoil into the Atlantic. At least 50 million acres lose all their topsoil, another 50 million are almost ruined, and 200 million are seriously damaged (see Soil Conservation Act, 1935). The western dust storms are an aftermath of imprudent plowing during the Great War, when farmers planted virgin lands in wheat to cash in on high grain prices. "Okies" and "Arkies" from the Dustbowl begin a trek to California that will relocate 350,000 farmers within the next 5 years.

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Dust storms ruined 100 million acres of U.S. croplands, forcing "Okies" and "Arkies" to move west to California.

The Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act passed June 28 allows mortgage foreclosures to be postponed for 5 years (but see 1935).

The Taylor Grazing Act passed June 28 sets up a program to control grazing and prevent erosion of western grasslands (see Stockraising Homestead Act, 1916). Ranchers have lobbied for passage of legislation that would halt damage to public lands, the new law allows them to lease public land at an annual fee to graze their herds, it effectively closes the public domain to homesteading, but in some cases it takes a full square mile to support a single head, and lessees must maintain fences, wells, pumps, stock ponds, and remote roads, pick up trash, assist law enforcement, provide aid to travelers, and share the land with recreationists.

The Department of Agriculture orders the slaughter of cattle, paying farmers and ranchers $16 per cow and $1 per calf to reduce oversupply and lower demand for feed grains.

Microbiologist-pathologist Theobald Smith dies at New York December 10 at age 75, having helped to develop ways to combat Texas cattle fever, vaccines against hog cholera, and other scientific and medical advances.

The modern poultry industry has its beginnings at Gainesville, Georgia, where Jesse Dixon Jewell, 32, buys chickens and eggs from local farmers and sells them in Atlanta. Jewell's father died in 1909, when he was 7; his mother kept her family alive by running a small feed store, which the young man took over when he came of age, but the Depression, along with a tornado that nearly destroyed Gainesville, has forced him to seek ways to supplement his income. Farmers lack the capital needed for modern poultry production; few can even afford feed, but Jewell finds a feed company willing to sell on consignment, persuades a local bank to loan him enough money to buy day-old chicks, places the chicks with farmers, and supplies the feed required to raise the birds to market weight (2.84 pounds on average). The system works, everybody concerned makes money, the consumer is able to buy chicken at a lower price, and the lower price spurs demand; Americans consume 50 million chickens, but they still pay more for poultry than for red met (see 1954; 1965).

Drought reduces the U.S. corn crop by nearly a billion bushels, and the average yield per acre falls to 15.7 bushels, down from 22.8 last year (wheat yields average 11.8 bushels per acre).

U.S. soybean acreage increases to 1 million (see 1923; 1944). A new expeller process for extracting oil from soybeans improves on the traditional hydraulic process, which is not only costly in time and labor but removes only 75 percent of the available oil in the bean. The expeller process removes up to 80 percent and produces a product of more uniform quality (see 1936).

The Midwestern drought obliges New York merchants to import from abroad the wheat needed to supply East Coast flour mills; Paris merchants are unable to obtain enough U.S. grain and will increase their orders for Argentinian wheat and corn, import soft wheat and corn from Romania, and import barley from Iran and North Africa.

Mexico's agrarian revolution advances under President Cardenas, who will resume distribution of the land to the pueblos and work also to build the power of organized labor.

Nazi Germany starts the Erzengungsschlacht program to expand domestic food production. By 1937 the country will be producing 90 percent of the food it consumes.

British potato farmers blame a "slimming" craze for a drop-off in sales.