The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, also called "AAA" (1933-1942), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies. The Agriculture Marketing Act, which established the Federal Farm Board in 1929, was seen as an important precursor to this act. The AAA, along with other New Deal programs, represented the federal government's first substantial effort to address economic welfare in the United States.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production, works to assure food safety, protects natural resources, fosters rural communities and works to end hunger in the United States and internationally. It is headed by the Secretary of Agriculture, who reports directly to the President of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who has served since February 24, 2021.
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was a program established by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, building on the Herbert Hoover administration's Emergency Relief and Construction Act. It was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
The Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment ActPub. L. 74–461, enacted February 29, 1936) is a United States federal law that allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production so as to conserve soil and prevent erosion.
The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is the foreign affairs agency with primary responsibility for the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) overseas programs – market development, international trade agreements and negotiations, and the collection of statistics and market information. It also administers the USDA's export credit guarantee and food aid programs and helps increase income and food availability in developing nations by mobilizing expertise for agriculturally led economic growth. The FAS mission statement reads, "Linking U.S. agriculture to the world to enhance export opportunities and global food security," and its motto is "Linking U.S. Agriculture to the World."
The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act is a 1946 United States federal law that created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to provide low-cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students through subsidies to schools. The program was established as a way to prop up food prices by absorbing farm surpluses, while at the same time providing food to school age children. It was named after Richard Russell, Jr., signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1946, and entered the federal government into schools' dietary programs on June 4, 1946.
Government cheese is processed cheese provided to welfare beneficiaries, Food Stamp recipients, and the elderly receiving Social Security in the United States, as well as to food banks and churches. This processed cheese was used in military kitchens during World War II and has been used in schools since the 1950s.
The Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation was one of the so-called alphabet agencies set up in the United States during the 1930s as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Created in 1933 as the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation, its name was changed by charter amendment on November 18, 1935. In 1937 its administration was placed within the United States Department of Agriculture. In 1940 it was combined with other USDA initiatives to form the Surplus Marketing Administration. It was abolished February 23, 1942, with the creation of the Agricultural Marketing Administration.
In different administrative and organizational forms, the Food for Peace program of the United States has provided food assistance around the world for more than 60 years. Approximately 3 billion people in 150 countries have benefited directly from U.S. food assistance. The Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the U.S. Government's largest provider of overseas food assistance. The food assistance programming is funded primarily through the Food for Peace Act. The Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance also receives International Disaster Assistance Funds through the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) that can be used in emergency settings.
In the United States, the farm bill is the primary agricultural and food policy instrument of the federal government. Every five years, Congress deals with the renewal and revision of the comprehensive omnibus bill.
The Potato Control Law (1929) was based upon an economic policy enacted by U.S. President Herbert Hoover's Federal Emergency Relief Administration at the beginning of the Great Depression. The policy became a formal act in 1935, and its legislative sponsors were from the state of North Carolina. Hoover's presidential successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed the Act into law on August 24, 1935.
The agricultural policy of the United States is composed primarily of the periodically renewed federal U.S. farm bills. The Farm Bills have a rich history which initially sought to provide income and price support to US farmers and prevent them from adverse global as well as local supply and demand shocks. This implied an elaborate subsidy program which supports domestic production by either direct payments or through price support measures. The former incentivizes farmers to grow certain crops which are eligible for such payments through environmentally conscientious practices of farming. The latter protects farmers from vagaries of price fluctuations by ensuring a minimum price and fulfilling their shortfalls in revenue upon a fall in price. Lately, there are other measures through which the government encourages crop insurance and pays part of the premium for such insurance against various unanticipated outcomes in agriculture.
The Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act was an Act of Congress passed in the United States in 1934 that restricted the ability of banks to repossess farms.
The Commodity Distribution Program, a program under Section 14 of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (NSLA), requires the Secretary of Agriculture to use agricultural surplus removal funds and Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funds to buy commodities for child and elderly nutrition programs. The Secretary is directed to use Section 32 funds not needed for other purposes and CCC funds to buy commodities for donation to maintain the annually programmed level of commodity assistance for Child and Elderly Nutrition programs mandated by the National School Lunch Act, Child Nutrition Act, and Older Americans Act.
The Commodity Distribution Reform Act and WIC Amendments of 1987 established a free-standing law requiring the USDA to improve the distribution and quality of commodities donated to child nutrition programs. It also established a foodbank demonstration project making use of Section 32 agricultural surplus commodities, amended the National School Lunch Act to permit certain pilot projects receiving cash in lieu of commodities or commodity letters of credit to continue receiving them, and amended the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to make a variety of changes to the WIC program to expand coordination with other programs, conduct studies, and convert certain food funding to use for administrative costs.
The Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is a program that evolved out of surplus commodity donation efforts begun by the USDA in late 1981 to dispose of surplus foods held by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). This program was explicitly authorized by the Congress in 1983 when funding was provided to assist states with the costs involved in storing and distributing the commodities. The program originally was entitled the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program when authorized under the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983. The program is now known as The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).
The Jones-Costigan Amendment, also known as the Sugar Act of 1934, passed on May 9, 1934 was an amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act that reclassified sugar crop as basic commodity, subject to the provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act enacted the previous year. Sponsored by Senator Edward P. Costigan (D-CO) and Representative John Marvin Jones (D-TX), the act was a New Deal effort to salvage an ailing sugar industry by imposing protective tariffs and quotas along with a direct subsidy to growers of sugar cane and sugar beet.
The Agricultural Act of 2014 is an act of Congress that authorizes nutrition and agriculture programs in the United States for the years of 2014-2018. The bill authorizes $956 billion in spending over the next ten years.
The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) provides supplementary United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) food packages to the low-income elderly of at least 60 years of age. It is one of the fifteen federally-funded nutrition assistance programs of the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), a USDA agency. The CSFP currently serves about 600,000 low‐income people every month.
The 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health was a historic first and resulted in landmark legislation. In his opening address on December 2, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon vowed “to put an end to hunger in America…for all time.” The three-day gathering came at the end of a decade of social, cultural, and political change which had resulted in a sudden awareness of the widespread malnutrition and hunger afflicting many poor in the United States. Eight-hundred academics and scientists, business and civic leaders, activists, and politicians developed more than 1,800 recommendations, which were reviewed by the 2,700 conference attendees and delivered in a full report to the President on December 24, 1969. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), National School Lunch Program (NSLP), and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) are among the 1,400 nutrition and food assistance programs and recommendations implemented or improved as a result of the White House Conference. In May 2022, President Joe Biden announced a new White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health which was scheduled to convene on September 28, 2022 in Washington, D.C.
