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A Century of Overproduction in American Agriculture

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A Century of Overproduction in American Agriculture A CENTURY OF OVERPRODUCTION IN AMERICAN AGRICULTURE Jason L. Ruffing Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2014 APPROVED: Michael Wise, Committee Chair Alfred Mierzejewski, Committee Member Jennifer Jensen Wallach, Committee Member Richard McCaslin, Chair of the Department of History Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Ruffing, Jason L. A Century of Overproduction in American Agriculture. Master of Arts (History), August 2014, 107 pp., 5 figures, bibliography, 82 titles. American agriculture in the twentieth century underwent immense transformations. The triumphs in agriculture are emblematic of post-war American progress and expansion but do not accurately depict the evolution of American agriculture throughout an entire century of agricultural depression and economic failure. Some characteristics of this evolution are unprecedented efficiency in terms of output per capita, rapid industrialization and mechanization, the gradual slip of agriculture's portion of GNP, and an exodus of millions of farmers from agriculture leading to fewer and larger farms. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an environmental history and political ecology of overproduction, which has lead to constant surpluses, federal price and subsidy intervention, and environmental concerns about sustainability and food safety. This project explores the political economy of output maximization during these years, roughly from WWI through the present, studying various environmental, economic, and social effects of overproduction and output maximization. The complex eco system of modern agriculture is heavily impacted by the political and economic systems in which it is intrinsically embedded, obfuscating hopes of food and agricultural reforms on many different levels. Overproduction and surplus are central to modern agriculture and to the food that has fueled American bodies for decades. Studying overproduction, or operating at rapidly expanding levels of output maximization, will provide a unique lens through which to look at the profound impact that the previous century of technological advance and farm legislation has had on agriculture in America. Copyright 2014 by Jason L. Ruffing ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapters 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................1 2. THE AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ADMINISTRATION, THE SOIL BANK, AND THE LEGISLATIVE FAILURES IN ,OVERPRODUCTION MANAGEMENT .............9 3. AMERICAN CORN OVERPRODUCTION THROUGHOUT THE LAST CENTURY ........40 4. MAXIMIZING MEAT: A STUDY OF THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN BEEF PRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................70 5. CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................................95 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................101 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION American agriculture in the twentieth century underwent immense transformations. The triumphs in agriculture are emblematic of post-war American progress and expansion but do not accurately depict the evolution of American agriculture throughout an entire century of agricultural depression and economic failure. The successes, innovations, and efficiencies of the previous century in agriculture have been well documented by historians in works such as Paul K. Conkin's A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 19291 and Bruce L. Gardner's American Agriculture In The Twentieth Century: How It Flourished and What It Cost.2 This thesis is a political ecology of overproduction in American agriculture, focusing on the impact that an ever-growing ethos of abundance and maximization has had on American farms. The social and economic transformations of rural America, while important to this story of modern American agriculture, are not this project's focus. Many other works, such as David B. Danbom's Born in the Country: A History of Rural America,3 and Arne Hallam's Size, Structure, and the Changing Face of American Agriculture4 have provided great historical and economic accounts of the vast effects of modernity on rural and agricultural life. Some characteristics of these changes are unprecedented efficiency in terms of output per capita, rapid industrialization and mechanization, the gradual slip of agriculture's portion of GNP, and an exodus of millions of 1 Conkin, Paul K. A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture Since 1929 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009). 2 Gardner, Bruce L. American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How It Flourished and What it Cost. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). 3David B. Danbom, Born in the Country: A History of Rural America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006). 4 Arne Hallam, Size, Structure, and the Changing Face of American Agriculture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993). 1 farmers from agriculture leading to fewer and larger farms.5 These topics are in many ways linked to total war economic expansion, and all provide fascinating examples of the dramatic changes in modern agriculture but are not discussed or analyzed here at length. My purpose is to provide an environmental history and political ecology of overproduction, which has lead to constant surpluses, federal price and subsidy intervention, and environmental concerns about sustainability and food safety. Studying overproduction, or operating at rapidly expanding levels of output maximization, provides a unique lens through which to look at the profound impact that the previous century of technological advance and farm legislation has had on agriculture in America. Overproduction and surplus are central to modern agriculture and to the food that has fueled American bodies for decades. This project explores the political economy of output maximization during these years, roughly from WWI through the present, studying various environmental, economic, and social effects of overproduction or output maximization. Another term for this sort of approach is political ecology, which studies the relationship between various eco systems and political systems.6 Political ecology is often intertwined throughout environmental history, studying the ways political decisions positively or negatively impact ecologies. The complex eco system of modern agriculture is heavily impacted by the political and economic systems in which it is intrinsically embedded. My focus here is to study the long term implications of systemic overproduction in American agriculture, and this paper argues that subsidized overproduction, a major characteristic of modern agriculture, is the result of brief periods of economic booms in World War I and World War II. Overproduction and output maximization that resulted from increases in demand during the World Wars led to brief periods 5 Hallam, Size, Structure, and the Changing Face of American Agriculture, 2. 6 Paul Robbins, Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 2004). 2 of price stability and prosperity for twentieth century American farmers. The federal government supported prices to incentivize increases, and European agriculture was greatly disrupted by war on their doorstep in both periods of total war. These brief periods of lofty expectations, along with government pressure to maximize output for war, led to great increases in agricultural output. This yielded added income for farmers who continued to produce at these higher levels after the treaties were signed and the wars were done. Farmers believed this was a new day and continued to maximize output in the post war years, detrimentally causing farm prices and their livelihoods to plummet. Consider the following quotation from Clinton P. Anderson, President Truman's Secretary of Agriculture, which demonstrates in clear and direct language the way that an environment of agricultural overproduction became firmly embedded in American power systems. Secretary Anderson's words have come to embody modern food production, and this excerpt from the USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1943-1947 provides the theoretical questioning and framework for this project. He wrote: Does not the same DDT that kills the Japanese beetle also kill the honeybee? By breeding a new wheat that withstands rust are we not making it more susceptible to a different enemy? Can we never be satisfied- must we go on with research forever? Does not this technology lead sooner or later to overproduction? On such points I have no fear: We did not stop making automobiles for fear we would wreck them; or leave off erecting dams, lest they burst; or refuse to construct homes because they might cave in. And need we be concerned that life be too abundant, that we and others in the world will have too much good food, too many clothes, too many medicines for our ills, too much leisure to look upward?7 In order to understand the modern food system, we must understand the ethos of abundance portrayed in the Secretary's quotation, words that epitomize the past century of American agricultural overproduction. A great majority of the current food and agricultural market is built 7 Clinton P. Anderson, "Life More Abundant", USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1943-1947 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
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