User:Bclyons/Agricultural machinery

Crop Overproduction Led to Government Intervention
As farms grew and crop production increased, the market was not able to support the farmers because the demand was not great enough. Prices of crops decreased and farmers were losing money and in some cases losing their farms. While prices of crops were had nearly decreased by half of their value between 1870 and 1897, the cost of operating a farm remained constant or even increased. In 1933 The Agricultural Adjustments Act was created to pay farmers to not produce as much as they would try attempt to keep the supply lowered. The AAA was revised three times and would remain in place for almost 60 years.

With the rise of the new technologies, the government funded colleges for agricultural research to encourage the production of labor-saving technologies. This was done by the 1862 Morrill Acts.

Impacts on Small Family Farms
The commercialization of farming decreased the amount of small farms and catered to large farms. In 1950 the average cost to equip a farm with the new machinery was $6,525. Farmers would only use all of their equipment a couple of days out of the year, so the upkeep of the machines was not worth the costs. Many farmers would buy the equipment and rent it out to other farmers to use, but many crops would perish before the renter could have their turn with the equipment. Roughly 750,000 farms were foreclosed in the years of 1930 to 1935.

Government subsidies and tax cuts benefitted the high-income farmer greater than the low-income farmer. After the Kennedy tax bill of 1964, the after-tax cost for new machinery was 40% lower for high-income farmers.

Job Displacement
In 1830, about it took about 300 labor hours to produce 5 acres of wheat, and by 1930 it took about 15 hours. As agricultural machinery advanced, less and less laborers were required to produce and harvest a crop. Since 1940, the farming population has decreased by roughly 3,000,000 which is about 12%. Many farmers were drawn to the city during the industrial revolution due to the lack of work in the rural farm areas.

The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution fed one another. As more people started to purchase more agricultural machinery, the demand for factory workers in the cities increased. Since farming labor was decreasing, many laborers moved to the city and filled that demand.