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1936 › Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic) › Farm prices and agricultural surplus
Continue soil conservation and domestic allotment payments; end ruinous surpluses; commodity loans on seasonal surpluses
pledge_forwarddirectional_stancecandidate_directevidence A Agriculture⚡ Butler decision voids the AAA⚡ Drought of 1936 similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
Keep the 1936 conservation-payment program, favor production 'of all the market will absorb' plus a reserve, judicious commodity loans on seasonal surpluses, and federal assistance to balance production with demand.
Rationale
Farm income had been 'doubled' and indebtedness reduced; the Court's AAA ruling required a new statutory basis.
Position chain: Raise staple farm prices by a tariff-equivalent benefit plus voluntary production control, at no cost to the Treasury
Statements (3)
We will continue to improve the soil conservation and domestic allotment program with payments to farmers.
We favor the production of all the market will absorb, both at home and abroad, plus a reserve supply sufficient to insure fair prices to consumers; we favor judicious commodity loans on seasonal surpluses; and we favor assistance within Federal authority to enable farmers to adjust and balance production with demand, at a fair profit to the farmers.
With their continued cooperation we will do all in our power to end the piling up of huge surpluses which spelled ruinous prices for their crops.
Follow-through
kept
The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 made price supports mandatory for corn, cotton and wheat, added marketing quotas, commodity loans, the 'ever-normal granary' storage reserve and crop insurance, financed from the Treasury rather than a processing tax; conservation payments continued.
Mechanisms
| Date | Type | Name | Effect | Consistent? | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1938-02-16 | statute | Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 | Price supports, marketing quotas, storage reserves.The Nation is now agreed that we must have greater reserves of food and feed to use in years of damaging weather and to help iron out extreme ups and downs of price. | yes | Statement on Signing the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. |
| 1938-02-16 | statute | AAA 1938 provisions | Mandatory supports; Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.The act was the first to make price support mandatory for corn, cotton, and wheat to help maintain a sufficient supply in low production periods along with marketing quotas to keep supply in line with market demand. | yes | Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 - Wikipedia |
Assessments
Listed first among the 75th Congress's achievements.
It improved still further our agricultural laws to give the farmer a fairer share of the national income, to preserve our soil, to provide an all-weather granary, to help the farm tenant toward independence, to find new uses for farm products, and to begin crop insurance.
Other positions on this issue
- Raise staple farm prices by a tariff-equivalent benefit plus voluntary production control, at no cost to the Treasury — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 specific_pledge
- Restore purchasing power to the farming half of the nation — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 directional_stance
- Farm prices can be restored only by general recovery and markets — no production control, no subsidies; repeal Farm Board stabilization — Herbert Hoover, 1932 specific_pledge
- Cash benefits on the domestically consumed portion of export crops to make the tariff effective, limited to the family-type farm; no scarcity program, no processing tax — Alf Landon, 1936 specific_pledge
1936-fdr-farm-program-surpluses-and-conservation · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed