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1932 › Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic) › Planned use of land and retirement of marginal farmland
A national policy of planned land use — economic soil survey and retirement of marginal farmland
pledge_forwardspecific_pledgecandidate_directevidence A AgricultureEnvironment & Conservation similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
A federally initiated, federal-state economic soil survey (especially in the East) to map and classify land for crops, marginal use, or tree crops; retire poor land from cultivation (New York model: $10 million voted, 200,000 acres bought and reforested); accompanying efforts to decentralize industry.
Rationale
The country already has more tilled land than it needs; cultivation of poor Eastern land depresses prices of better land's products and wastes public and private resources.
Statements (2)
Second, I favor a definite policy looking to the planned use of the land.
there is need for an economic soil survey, especially in the Eastern States, to be carried on jointly by the Nation and the States through the initiative of the Federal Government.
Follow-through
kept
The Soil Erosion Service (1933) became the Soil Conservation Service (1935); the Resettlement Administration bought submarginal land; the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act (1936) tied farm payments to land use; the National Resources Board's 1934 land report was the national soil and land survey Topeka described.
Mechanisms
| Date | Type | Name | Effect | Consistent? | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1935-04-27 | statute | Soil Conservation Act / Soil Conservation Service | yes | Franklin D. Roosevelt: Domestic Affairs | Miller Center | |
| 1936-03-01 | statute | Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act | yes | Statement on Signing the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act. |
Assessments
Roosevelt is credited as the father of soil conservation.
As Theodore Roosevelt is the father of forest conservation, Franklin Roosevelt is the father of soil conservation.
Other positions on this issue
- Support a sound program to divert land from unprofitable to profitable use — Herbert Hoover, 1932 specific_pledge
1932-fdr-planned-land-use-soil-survey · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed