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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture During the ’Thirties: Trends and Policies - 8. The Dilemma of Agricultural Policy - 9. Economic Evaluation of the A.A.A
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Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculiure 265
with a poor diet could be given what the Department of Agriculture
characterizes as a ^^moderate-cost good diet,” this would, with present
techniquesy require a crop acreage only about 20 per cent larger than was
harvested in 1939.“*® The attempts to increase the demands of low-income
families by means of direct distribution of agricultural products, by the
Food Stamp Plan and by school lunches, are highly commendable from
the viewpoint of national health. But they cannot remove the over-
production indefinitely 5
at best they can merely cushion the effects of it
temporarily.
By the same token, the attempts to make farmers go in for a system of
almost complete self-sufficiency can scarcely do more than mitigate the
effects of the rural over-population.®® It is true, theoretically, that if a large
enough number of farmers went in for self-sufficient agriculture, all over-
production would be checked. But this would mean permanently dividing
the farming population into two parts, of which only one would be allowed
to go in for modern cost-saving specialization and efficient techniques. The
other part would have to diversify its efforts and use inefficient techniques
to an extent where they would be working hard and getting little in return,
including practically nothing in the way of modern conveniences. This plan
would never provide the hope of approaching what is understood to be
^‘the American standard of living.” Too, it would require the permanent
stifling of ambition and an economic dictatorship to separate those retained
in commercial agriculture from those forced into self-sufficient agriculture.
Such a solution, if it were applied consistently and on a large scale, would
not be acceptable to the American people.
This basic dilemma in agricultural pobey is now much greater in the
South, where over-population is so much more pressing than in the North.
The burden of over-population, in the form of both unemployment and
extreme poverty among those retained in agricultural employment, falls
much more heavily on the Negro population than on the whites.
9. Economic Evaluation OF the A.A.A.
We are now ready to proceed to an evaluation of the A.A.A. program
in its relation to cotton cultivation and the Negro farmer.
From the restricted point of view of production efficiency, the reduction
of cotton acreage, and the dismissal of tenants consequent to this and to the
special inducement contained in the benefit payments, is all to the good.
The Southern plantation has altogether too many workers and tenants j
cotton cultivation, as it has been carried on in the South, involves an
exploitation of labor that is not compatible with American standards and
American economic possibilities. From the same point of view, mechani-
zation also is desirable. Any rise in farm labor standards, through collective
bargaining or social legislation, would also, for the same reason, be com-
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