The Role Of Farming In The 1930's

During Westward Expansion farmers fell victims to the low pricing of the crops. Most farmers struggled to make a living due to key issues. There was often a high tax on railroads which had cut a large profit from the farmers. The farmers had no other option other than the railroad since the farmers were often very far off westward in the Great Plains, while the market with a large population was still in eastern cities like New York. Likewise farmers had to pay a middle man in the East to sell their commodities in the East, because the poor farmers were unable to travel all the way to the East to sell their products then come back to start farming for the next year.

The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them the hardest.” (Lee 27) To clarify, since they were country folk and farmers they were affected badly by the Great Depression. This event had caused them to be penniless. To conclude, the reader learns that the Great Depression had caused the white-collared people to be indigent because the farmers were poor. Farmers couldn’t go to the professional people because they didn’t have money and it was difficult for them to come across

2500 valley residents who rely on these seasonal jobs to provide for their families have been hit especially hard. Things like fallowing have help lead to less jobs for these workers. Valley residents have seen many obstacles these past few years and things can only bend so much until they finally break. That is the big question, how much longer can residents in the valley continue to bend in these conditions. People all around the world depend on the central valley as well as the valley residents.

The cost of equipment, land, insurance, and all other capital is so high that it’s nearly impossible to get into the agriculture business without being rich or taking a hefty loan out of the bank. Those who do manage to start a farm face a struggling battle, many smaller farms with receipts less than $25,000 did not report enough farm income to cover their expenses in 2005 and the number of these cases have increased in most subsequent years. The amount of profit exists differently between all types of farming, and in fact, whether or not the farm becomes a million dollar farm depends on what they produce and if the year was good for them; a great example of a million dollar farm would be hog farming which only makes up 2.6% of all farms in Canada but yet 17.8% of those hog farms reported making over 1 million in gross farm receipts, field crops on the other hand, representing just over 30% of all the farms in Canada, only had 1.5% of them making over 1 million in gross farm receipts. It is known that the cost of farming is a big deterrent for people wishing to enter the industry, the number of farms in Canada continue to fall and yet nothing drastic is being done to support the would be farmers who represent the future of Canada’s farming

The goal of the Kansas Farmer’s Alliance was to give the farmers more of a say in buying their supplies and selling their products.Then the Alliance started to fail due to lack of money, management and support.With the fail of the Alliance most of the members joined the Populist

The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, took place during the Great Depression, a period in which business activity in the United States was impeded. Farmers had to work even harder to produce and pay off their debts, and when the depression hit, many of these farms were taken by the banks. Because they had no choice to stay, the farmers were forced to migrate with their families to the West in search for opportunities and jobs. In these desperate times, specific gender roles are quickly diminishing, which is shown through the Joad family. The men, focusing on supporting their family and finding work, also are helping out with womanly tasks.

Most large leaders in the North and South saw this distinction, and it was heavily credited as the leading factor of the Civil War. Raw cotton even after it became ‘profitable’ to sell was highly dependent on external forces, which meant that growing it was risky because it was a highly nutrient demanding crop. This meant that after using a field a few times for cotton production that you would have to move on, or grow something much less profitable. Only the top portion of the farmers in the South could afford to sustainably, and profitably produce cotton in large amounts. Most farmers in the South had much smaller farms, and more often than not would go into debt.

France 's economy in the late 1700s was based primarily on agriculture. Due to years of poor weather and drought, farmers produced little crops. As a result, the price of food increased, there was also shortage. The farmers found it hard to pay the new prices, as well as their taxes because they weren 't making enough profit. King Louis XV, also known as the Sun King, helped significantly contribute to France 's financial problems..

For example, when Alabama enacted a bill that made it more difficult for the undocumented population to live and work there, the agricultural sector suffered greatly (Weigel). Undocumented workers were prompted to leave the state, and the the agricultural sector struggled to replace the labor force that was so heavily saturated with undocumented workers (Strupp). Farms spent a great deal of money training new workers, and many people did not want to do that kind of work (Weigel). The U.S. agriculture industry relies laboriously on undocumented workers and immigrants, and it is necessary to have such workers in order for the agriculture industry to survive

At the end of World War 1, the United States has a hard time making the switch to a peace time economy and the country slips into a recession. The prices of crops have dropped so low farmers are having a hard time making ends meet. And then the stock market crashes and the depression hits. To add to the problems the farmers are having trying to make enough money to survive, in 1931 a drought hits in the southern and plains states. The farmers had bought tractors to plow up more and more land in order to have a large enough crop to survive.

Farmers were abused by the railroad freight fees, the world market’s dramatic drop of commodity prices caused by overproduction, and tariffs for their goods which resulted in the farmers to be continuously be stuck in debt. Industrial workers constantly suffered in poor working conditions and low pay. It was not uncommon for most workers to work more than ten hours a day. They were also faced with job instability. Missing a day of work could easily could get them fired, and if a worker was faced with an injury or sickness they would have to suck it up and continue working because there was no “sick days”.

In Addition to maldistribution stood the credit structure of the economy, some farmers were in deep land mortgage debt, so they lowered their crop prices in order to regain credit, and because the farmers were no longer accountable for what they owed banks. Across the nation the banking system found themselves in constant trouble. In America both small and large bankers were concerned for their survival, so they began investing recklessly in stock markets and granting unwise loans. These unconscious decisions would lead a large consequence, such as families losing their life savings and their deposits became uninsured. “ More than 9,000 American banks either went bankrupt or closed their doors to avoid bankruptcy between 1930 and 1933.”Although

Many thought that these businesses were trying to get every penny that they possibly owned out of the farmers. The farmers felt that they were paying more and more to take loans and borrow money, to buy farming necessities and to sell their crops. The prices that had for the crops was degrading dramatically.