Congress and the Farm Problem

Report Outline
Basis of the Post-War Farm Problem
Efforts to Improve the Farm Situation
Evolution of the Mcnary-Haugen Plan
The Administration's Attitude and Policy
The Present Legislative Situation
The Future of American Agriculture

The farm surplus-relief bills now pending before Congress attempt to deal with one phase of the larger farm problem, which in its various aspects, has commanded almost continuous public attention since 1920.

Before taking up the pending legislation, the following report will attempt to set out some of the basic factors underlying the general farm problem, as distinguished from the surplus problem, and to indicate the attitude held toward the general problem by leaders of the organized farmers. An understanding of this attitude, and the reasons for it, is essential to a full understanding of the situation which now confronts the House, the Senate and the administration.

The farm problem, as it is viewed by farm leaders, is “simply a question of national policy”. Due to a series of changes in farm conditions and the farmer's relation to the rest of the community, fanning has been an unsatisfactory occupation since the deflation of 1922–21, and several million of the rural population have left their farms and moved to the cities. Prosperity could quickly be restored to the farms, it is argued, if industry and labor were willing to give up some of the special advantages flowing from tariff protection, immigration restriction, price and wage agreements, or were willing to grant equivalent advantages to agriculture.1