Archive Report
Archive Report
A New Approach to the Farm Relief Problem
Provision for a new approach to the long-standing problem of farm relief was made by the Agricultural Adjustment Act, approved by President Roosevelt on May 12, 1933. Discarding reliance on so-called stabilization operations and dependence on ever-widening extension of federal credit to hard-pressed farmers as the principal methods of relief, the new law empowered the Secretary of Agriculture to inaugurate drastic plans for directly controlling production of the chief agricultural commodities. He was also authorized to enter into marketing agreements to regulate the wholesale and retail distribution of food products and fix the prices at which they might, be sold. An Agricultural Adjustment Administration was created within the Department of Agriculture to administer the new law. By ...