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CHAPTER 5

LIGHTENING THE IMPACT OF THE 1936 DROUGHT

SALIENT FACTS ABOUT 1936 DROUGHT-RELIEF OPERATIONS

1. Percentage by which hay and roughage supplies in relation to number of hay-consuming animals was greater at the beginning of 1936 than at the beginning of 1934:

In the entire country..

In principal drought States

percent__
._do__

2. Number of counties designated by the drought committee of the United States Department of Agriculture as "emergency drought counties" at the end of 1936_

3. Number of cattle and calves purchased by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration under the drought cattle-purchase program, through December 31, 1936.

4. Amount expended by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in purchasing cattle and calves under the drought cattlepurchase program, through December 31, 1936

5. Seed grains purchased by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration under the seed-conservation program, through December 31, 1936:

Spring wheat.

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Durum wheat

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6. Selected seed corn covered by applications for loans at $1.75 per
bushel under seed-corn-loan program, through December 31,
1936_
bushels
7. Cribbed corn on which loans at 55 cents per bushel had been com-
pleted by Commodity Credit Corporation through December
31, 1936
..bushels..

107, 400

114, 300

In the past it has been accepted as inevitable that years of drought and crop failure should sometimes follow years of surplus production and glutted markets, and that either extreme would bring failure, bankruptcy, and suffering. Whenever extreme drought struck the Western and Midwestern States, great movements of the population took place. Large areas were abandoned for years, until cycles of rainfall adequate for crop production appeared again, and the land was settled anew. At the same time there were heavy drains on the country for relief of drought sufferers.

The effects of the agricultural adjustment and agricultural conservation programs, however, has been to mitigate and lessen the impact of these disasters, both on agriculture and on the country as a whole. These effects were evident both in 1934 and in 1936. They were coupled with necessary emergency activities of the Government.

148279°-37———7

In general the effect of these programs has been the stabilization of agricultural production within the drought areas. Stabilization of production has meant less depletion, through drought, of supplies of feed for livestock, and therefore less loss of income to farmers in the drought area and less reduction of supplies of livestock products for consumers, as well as better purchasing power, among farmers, for the products of urban industry. Conservation farming has operated to diminish the loss of soil through wind erosion in dry weather and through rainfall when it follows drought. Thus it has conserved and made useful the meager rainfall of dry years and has prevented the unduly rapid depletion of the soil's productive power.

These benefits from the adjustment and conservation programs have been supplemented in 1934 and 1936 by other Government activities which have resulted in orderly liquidation of livestock numbers so that a better balance between animals and feed supplies has been maintained; in the conservation of seed supplies for future planting; in direct relief to farmers and their livestock in the drought-plagued regions; and in other ameliorations of the effect of drought.

These activities have served to stabilize farm production in the drought areas to a certain degree, thus minimizing suffering among farmers and maintaining farm population and income in a more stable situation with less drain upon the charity or tax contributions from the rest of the country than would have been the case with no organized effort to prepare in advance against the effects of drought.

I. AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMS INCREASED FORAGE

SUPPLIES

The adjustment and soil-conservation programs in the 4 years in which they have been in operation, have contributed largely to the material increase in pasture and forage crops available for cattle shipped out of the drought area or for feed to be shipped into that area. The increase in the production of grasses and legumes, which conserve the soil and withstand drought better than do the intensively cultivated crops, enabled many producers to feed their livestock in 1936 in spite of the drought.

The shortage in the 1936 hay crop was offset in part by the unusually large carry-over of 13,000,000 tons from the record crop of 89,742,000 tons in 1935, so that the total supply for the season- carry-over plus production in 1936 was greater than the average for the preceding 5 seasons. Because dryness did not become intensified until July in 1936, farmers were able to make maximum use of the spring pasture and early grain crops.

The effect of the soil-conservation program is evident in the increased acreages in 1936, of annual legumes, both alone and interplanted with other crops, in the South Atlantic and South Central States. In the case of soybeans, the increase over 1935 in the Southern States was 35 percent in acres grown alone, and 44 percent in acres interplanted. The average soybean acreage for the country as a whole, in 1928-32 was 2,635,000 acres; the estimated acreage of soybeans grown alone for all purposes in 1936 was 5,635,000 acres; the acreage interplanted was 1,293,000 acres.

LEGUME HAY PRODUCTION ABOVE AVERAGE

Alfalfa hay production in 1936, in spite of the drought, is estimated at 24,799,000 tons as compared with an average of 23,605,000 tons for 1928-32. The average acreage in 1928-32 was 11,754,000 acres; in 1936 it was increased by more than 2,000,000 acres to 14,062,000 acres. The average acreage of lespedeza harvested for hay in 1928-32 was 504,000 acres; but it is estimated that in 1936 there were harvested 1,541,000 acres. Acreage of lespedeza for pasture and soil improvement in 1936 is estimated at 5,000,000 acres more than that of 1932. The average acreage of all tame hay for 1928-32 is estimated at 55,170,000 acres; in 1936 the acreage harvested was 57,083,000 acres, an increase of about 2,000,000 acres. Acreages of wild hay and some of the less important kinds of tame hay were somewhat smaller in 1936 than in 1935, but increase in clover, timothy, sweetclover, and grain hay, and a continuation of an upward trend in alfalfa acreage, somewhat balanced the reductions. Total hay acreage in 1936, estimated at 67,777,000 acres, is about 1 percent below the average obtaining before the recent series of drought years.

ORDERLY LIQUIDATION OF LIVESTOCK NUMBERS

The effect of orderly liquidation of livestock numbers in 1934 and 1935 was apparent in 1936 when the drought struck. At the beginning of 1936 the number of hay-consuming animals was nearly 7 percent less, and that of grain-consuming animals nearly 14 percent less, than at the beginning of 1934. By the middle of August 1936, supplies of hay and roughage in relation to the number of hayconsuming livestock were 30 percent greater than on the same date in 1934 for the entire country, and approximately 50 percent greater for the principal drought-stricken States.

II. GOVERNMENT ACTIVITIES IN DROUGHT RELIEF

While the adjustment and conservation programs were effective in advance protection against the results of drought, the emergency nature of the situation required additional emergency activities. These additional measures were carried out by various Governmental and State agencies. In 1936 the effectuation of the drought-relief programs was made easier because of the experience gained in 1934 in dealing with the drought problem of that year.

COMMITTEES APPOINTED TO COORDINATE GOVERNMENT ATTACK

In June of 1936 the President appointed an interdepartmental drought committee to coordinate and accelerate the drought-relief activities of the various Government agencies. The Secretary of Agriculture was appointed chairman of the committee, which included also the acting director of the budget, representing the United States Treasury; the administratior of the Resettlement Administration; and the assistant administrator of the Works Progress Administration. This committee immediately undertook a survey of the drought situation and the actions appropriate to meet the emergency. Use was made of existing agencies so far as possible.

On June 22, 1936, the Secretary of Agriculture appointed a committee to plan the drought activities of the Department of Agriculture. The departmental committee was headed by an assistant administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and included the Director of the Agricultural Extension Service, the Chief of the Soil Conservation Service, the Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and another Assistant Administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

First designations of emergency drought areas were made July 7, by the drought committee of the Department of Agriculture. Within 24 hours the drought territory was extended into the Southeast and included 268 counties. A month later 890 emergency drought counties in 21 States had been designated. At the end of 1936 the officially designated drought area covered 1,194 counties in 25 States. The drought committee certified emergency drought counties on the basis of reports from directors of State agricultural extension services, Federal-State crop statisticians, and representatives of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Application of all drought-relief measures, including the granting of reduced freight rates, making of livestock feed and transportation loans, and assignment of work relief projects, was based upon the official designation of the drought areas.

SOIL CONSERVATION PROGRAM MODIFIED

During the first week in July the provisions of the soil conservation program were so modified as to encourage an increase in the production of needed food and feed crops in the drought areas. The program was sufficiently flexible to permit its being modified to meet emergencies such as drought, while still being kept in line with the objectives defined in the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act.

In the Southern, East Central, and Northeast Regions, grants for shifting acreage to soil-conserving crops were made to farmers who also planted food and feed crops on an acreage in addition to their general soil-depleting bases. In these regions the land on which soybeans were cut for hay and on which a winter cover crop was then seeded, was reclassified as soil-conserving acreage.

Originally the programs for these regions had included certain food and feed crops in the general soil-depleting bases of farmers and had provided for deductions from the grants to farmers whose acreages of soil-depleting crops in 1936 exceeded the soil-depleting bases for their farms.

In order to encourage the production of emergency forage crops in the Western, North Central, and Northeast Regions, land on which soil-conserving crops had failed and which had then been planted to crops for hay, retained its classification as soil-conserving acreage on which farmers received their grants. In the East Central Region farmers who planted an acreage of small grains or grasses for hay, or sorghums for hay or forage, sufficient to offset their drought losses, received their grants.

In designating drought counties in the Western Region, land seeded to any soil-depleting crop except corn, and used to produce hay and pasture, was classified as neutral land. In the same counties, land from which a nurse crop had been harvested was classified as soilconserving if grasses or legumes had later been seeded on it. In all regions farmers were able to qualify for soil-building or soil-conserving

payments by proving that they had seeded soil-conserving crops according to good farming practices.

Provisions were made for applying the terms of the agricultural conservation program in the Southern Region in such fashion as to lighten the effects of the drought there. Emergency forage crops. needed for livestock feed were encouraged by classifying them as soil-conserving crops, thereby enabling farmers to receive their soilconserving payments while growing the crops that were particularly needed in the South during the period of the drought.

Where adjustment in the determination of soil-depleting base acreages was helpful in enabling farmers to counteract the effects of the drought, such adjustment was authorized.

In general, every encouragement was given to families living on farms in the South-owners, share-croppers, and tenants in the production of food crops and feedstuffs for the farm workstock.

CATTLE AND SHEEP PURCHASE PROGRAMS

Developed largely as a precautionary measure to prevent price demoralization in case drought forced a severe liquidation of livestock, a cattle-purchase program was authorized July 7, 1936, and terminated October 24 of the same year. To finance the program an allotment of $5,000,000 was made available from funds provided from the customs receipts under section 32 of the act of August 24, 1935, amending the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

The program was carried out by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in cooperation with the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation. Field operations were directed by the Commodities Purchase Section of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration through its regional office in Chicago. Meat products obtained through the program were turned over to the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation and by it donated to State relief agencies for distribution.

On days when market receipts of drought cattle appeared excessive, buyers for the Commodities Purchase Section were instructed to buy, at the prevailing market price, only such numbers of cattle as were in excess of commercial requirements.

Under this program, 3,663 cattle and calves were acquired at an average cost of $3.74 per hundredweight, live weight, or $26.25 per head. Total live cost of animals was $96,164.45; estimated cost of buying and processing was $5,368; shipping and transportation, $3,923; and curing and storing of hides, $2,300. Hides remained the property of the Government and were placed in storage for sale at a later date. Estimated value of the hides is $17,000.

The cattle-purchase program was coordinated with several other measures such as stabilization and distribution of feed supplies in the drought area, loans, grants, and other programs, for relieving the pressure on farmers in the area to sell their cattle on a droughtdepressed market. In addition, an unexpectedly wide demand for cattle developed and the purpose of the program was accomplished through purchase of a much smaller number of cattle than had been anticipated when the program was authorized.

The purchases and the announced intention of the Government to support the cattle market on common cutter grades of cows, steers, and heifers, and common classes of calves assisted materially in

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