The Soil Bank Act of 1956 was part of the Agricultural Act of 1956 passed by the U.S. Congress. This act created the Soil Bank Program, which removed farmland from production in an effort to reduce large crop surpluses after World War II. [1] Land deposited into the Soil Bank was then converted into conservation use. [2] The idea for the Soil Bank was taken from legislation from the 1930s dust bowl and was similar to many depression-era solutions to lower crop prices. [2] Eventually, the Soil Bank act of 1956 was overturned by the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965.
Following World War II, the government struggled with how to deal with the large farm surpluses that had been created by price supports. [3] The first proposed solution to the problem was the Brannan Plan proposed by Secretary of Agriculture, C. F. Brannan, in 1949. The Brannan plan allowed for the treasury to pay farmers the difference between market prices and a modernized parity price. [3] The Brannan plan was praised because it would eliminate the need to store surpluses and is also beneficial to the American for the goodbye across the low prices. However, the Brannan plan was never instituted. Many labor consumer groups supported plan as well as the Americans for Democratic action, and the NFU. [4] However, most labor economists opposed the plan "for its failure to make provisions for the adjustment for support levels in light of demand and supply and for setting these levels and excessive 100% parity." [5] The Soil Bank act fall of the Brannan plan and was a less radical solution to the problem of crop surpluses. The Soil Bank act was similar to many Depression-era solutions. [2]
The Soil Bank act of 1956 created the Soil Bank Program. This act was devised to reduce supplies of basic commodities by achieving a 10 to 17% reduction in plowland through payments to farmers who shifted land out of production to be held in the Soil Bank. [3] The Soil Bank converted 80% of the cost of converting from crop to conservation land. [3] Annual payments were also provided to participating states. The payments were based on base price per commodity in the amount of land surrendered. [2] In the south, these annual payments varied from about $8.68 per acre in 1956 to about $11.85 per acre in 1960. [2] From 1956 to 1960, the Soil Bank converted 28,700,000 acres nationwide from crop production to conservation uses. [3] 2.2 million of these acres were used for tree planting, of which 1,922,604 were planted in the southern states of Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma. [3]
Studies on the effects of the Soil Bank have shown that in Georgia, after 18 years, 83.1% of the land dedicated to trees remains forested. The study showed that after 33 years, 80% of land nationally remains forested. The same study found that only 2.5% of the land dedicated to trees has been re-converted back to cropland.
By reducing the amount of land that was actually producing crops, the Soil Bank act hoped to reduce the supply of certain crops. Due to this decrease in the supply, many food prices would rise, which was the government solution to the large surpluses. In 1957, J. Carol Bottum found that the Soil Bank program was unsuccessful in the Wisconsin corn and dairy area because it failed to materially reduce agricultural output. [6] However, some benefits of the Soil Bank or found including that increased mobility of farmers by "making it possible to reduce farm operations without loss of income and still retain the security of the farm case of layoff." [7] One negative effect of the Soil Bank with that also shrunk the amount of land farmers were able to rent out to others or rent for themselves. This made it difficult for some small farmers to expand their operations. The Soil Bank act was repealed by the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965. [8]
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 Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors and manmade factors. The drought came in three waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.
Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming, is an agricultural system that uses fertilizers of organic origin such as compost manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation and companion planting. It originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing farming practices. Certified organic agriculture accounts for 70 million hectares globally, with over half of that total in Australia. Organic farming continues to be developed by various organizations today. Biological pest control, mixed cropping, and the fostering of insect predators are encouraged. Organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally-occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substances. For instance, naturally-occurring pesticides such as pyrethrin are permitted, while synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are generally prohibited. Synthetic substances that are allowed include, for example, copper sulfate, elemental sulfur, and ivermectin. Genetically modified organisms, nanomaterials, human sewage sludge, plant growth regulators, hormones, and antibiotic use in livestock husbandry are prohibited. Organic farming advocates claim advantages in sustainability, openness, self-sufficiency, autonomy and independence, health, food security, and food safety.
Conservation agriculture (CA) can be defined by a statement given by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as "Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a farming system that can prevent losses of arable land while regenerating degraded lands.It promotes minimum soil disturbance, maintenance of a permanent soil cover, and diversification of plant species. It enhances biodiversity and natural biological processes above and below the ground surface, which contribute to increased water and nutrient use efficiency and to improved and sustained crop production."
The Fair Deal was a set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in 1945 and in his January 1949 State of the Union address. More generally, the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman administration, from 1945 to 1953. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with a conservative coalition controlling Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. As Richard Neustadt concludes, the most important proposals were aid to education, national health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. They were all debated at length, then voted down. Nevertheless, enough smaller and less controversial items passed that liberals could claim some success.
The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is the United States Department of Agriculture agency that was formed by merging the farm loan portfolio and staff of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS). The Farm Service Agency implements agricultural policy, administers credit and loan programs, and manages conservation, commodity, disaster, and farm marketing programs through a national network of offices. The Administrator of FSA reports to the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation. The current Administrator is Zach Ducheneaux. The FSA of each state is led by a politically appointed State Executive Director (SED).
The history of agriculture in the United States covers the period from the first English settlers to the present day. In Colonial America, agriculture was the primary livelihood for 90% of the population, and most towns were shipping points for the export of agricultural products. Most farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers. After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export. After 1840, industrialization and urbanization opened up lucrative domestic markets. The number of farms grew from 1.4 million in 1850, to 4.0 million in 1880, and 6.4 million in 1910; then started to fall, dropping to 5.6 million in 1950 and 2.2 million in 2008.
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 Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is a wholly owned United States government corporation that was created in 1933 to "stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices". The CCC is authorized to buy, sell, lend, make payments, and engage in other activities for the purpose of increasing production, stabilizing prices, assuring adequate supplies, and facilitating the efficient marketing of agricultural commodities.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a cost-share and rental payment program of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Under the program, the government pays farmers to take certain agriculturally used croplands out of production and convert them to vegetative cover, such as cultivated or native bunchgrasses and grasslands, wildlife and pollinators food and shelter plantings, windbreak and shade trees, filter and buffer strips, grassed waterways, and riparian buffers. The purpose of the program is to reduce land erosion, improve water quality and effect wildlife benefits.
The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, known informally as the Freedom to Farm Act, the FAIR Act, or the 1996 U.S. Farm Bill, was the omnibus 1996 farm bill that, among other provisions, revises and simplifies direct payment programs for crops and eliminates milk price supports through direct government purchases.
The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, also known as the 2002 Farm Bill, includes ten titles, addressing a great variety of issues related to agriculture, ecology, energy, trade, and nutrition. This act has been superseded by the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill.
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 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.
Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 71% of the country's land area, employs 1% of its workforce and contributes 0.5% of its gross value added. The UK currently produces about 60% of its domestic food consumption.
In the United States, the Acreage Reduction Program (ARP) is a no-longer-authorized annual cropland retirement program for wheat, feed grains, cotton, or rice in which farmers participating in the commodity programs were mandated to idle a crop-specific, nationally set portion of their base acreage during years of surplus. The idled acreage was devoted to a conserving use. The goal was to reduce supplies, thereby raising market prices. Additionally, idled acres did not earn deficiency payments, thus reducing commodity program costs. ARP was criticized for diminishing the U.S. competitive position in export markets. The 1996 farm bill did not reauthorize ARPs. ARP differed from a set-aside program in that under a set-aside program reductions were based upon current year plantings, and did not require farmers to reduce their plantings of a specific crop.
The Agricultural Act of 1956 created the Soil Bank Program, addressed the disposal of Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) inventories of surplus stocks, contained commodity support program provisions, and contained forestry provisions. The Soil Bank Act authorized short- and long-term removal of land from production with annual rental payments to participants. The Acreage Reserve Program, for wheat, corn, rice, cotton, peanuts, and several types of tobacco, allowed producers to retire land on an annual basis in crop years 1956 through 1959 in return for payments. The Conservation Reserve Program allowed producers to retire cropland under contracts of 3, 5, or 10 years in return for annual payments. The Soil Bank Act was repealed by Section 601 of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965. The Conservation Reserve portion of the Soil Bank was a model for the subsequent Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), enacted in 1985.
The Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade (FACT) Act of 1990 — P.L. 101-624 was a 5-year omnibus farm bill that passed Congress and was signed into law.
The Food Security Act of 1985, a 5-year omnibus farm bill, allowed lower commodity price and income supports and established a dairy herd buyout program. This 1985 farm bill made changes in a variety of other USDA programs. Several enduring conservation programs were created, including sodbuster, swampbuster, and the Conservation Reserve Program.
The Brannan Plan was a failed United States farm bill from 1949. It called for "compensatory payments" to American farmers in response to the major problem of large agricultural surpluses stemming from price supports for farmers. The Brannan Plan was named after Charles Brannan, who served as the fourteenth United States Secretary of Agriculture from 1948 to 1953 as a liberal member of President Harry S. Truman's cabinet. It was blocked by conservatives and never became law. The start of the Korean War in June 1950 made the surpluses a vital weapon and prices soared as surpluses were used up, making the proposal irrelevant.