GET THOSE BOYS OFF THE FARM! - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 6

century, was spurred by the incongruity of farmers, who were central to the nation's well-being, suffering
from poverty and bankruptcy. As a result of these hardships, the portion of farmers in the country's labor
pool dropped from 58 percent to 38 percent during this period. In 1850, farmers owned almost 75 percent
of U.S. wealth, but by 1890 this had plummeted to 25 percent.
Farmers on an economic roller coaster were a dynamic political force through the end of the nineteenth
century: they worked for candidates; pushed to regulate the railroads, grain elevators, and meatpackers;
and joined with labor unions to demand an end to their economic plight. They sought alternative structures
to improve their standard of living, forming cooperatives, founding banks, and pushing to end the gold
standard and to use silver coinage to lessen the control of the banking interests.
By the turn of the twentieth century, as the industrial revolution transformed the country, the wealthly
concentrated in urban centers, and the income gap grew for rural Americans, whether they were share-
croppers in the South or grain farmers in the Great Plains. The economic upheaval forced a combination
of major industries that created large corporate bodies known as trusts that relied on price fixing to avoid
competition and charged high prices for necessities. Low prices devastated cotton and tobacco farmers
early in the century. In response, farmers organized actions to withhold their products from the market in
an attempt to boost prices that generated violent responses from the industries dependent on their crops.
In 1902, the National Farmers Union, which continues to be a political force today, was formed in Rains
County, Texas, to advocate for a family farm system of agriculture.
The first two decades of the new century were a prosperous time for many farmers, as prices increased
and the number of farms declined. Many farmers still felt victimized by the banks, railroads, and grain
companies. The Non-Partisan League (NPL) was formed in North Dakota to advocate for state-owned
grain elevators and flour mills. By working in a farmer-labor coalition NPL candidates won most of the
elected offices in North Dakota in 1916 and initiated reforms, including state inspection of grain elevators,
regulation of railroad shipping rates, and a reassessment of land taxes for farmers.
Yet the continuing problem of the monopoly control of crucial industries and consumer items caused
hardships for both rural and urban Americans, creating the political momentum for the Progressive era.
Theodore Roosevelt, elected on a trust-busting platform, underscored the need for fair government regu-
lation of “special interests.” His administration's first target was J.P. Morgan, a financier who controlled
Northern Securities, a railroad that monopolized freight movement across the northern United States.
Roosevelt's attorney general filed suit to break up the railroad, and Morgan lost on appeal at the U.S. Su-
preme Court, in a vote of 5 to 4. At the end of his term, Roosevelt said that he had given Americans a
“square deal.”
Government policies designed to increase prices encouraged farmers to put out a staggering amount of
products during World War I. But prices crashed in 1920 when commodity markets shrank after battle-
fields in Europe returned to farm fields and U.S. crops were no longer necessary, wartime price supports
were eliminated, and President Wilson lowered tariffs to encourage imports. The world prices for grain and
cotton collapsed, leading to bankruptcy for farms across the nation. While the twenties were “roaring” for
some, the Depression came early to rural farming communities, where prices decreased on average to half
of wartime levels.
It was during this time that the American Farm Bureau Federation, an organization that continues to
represent agribusiness today, was organized to counteract the strong farmer-labor organizing that was be-
coming a formidable political force. To this day, the Farm Bureau has acted in concert with the U.S. Cham-
ber of Commerce, together protecting the economic interests of industry and agribusiness and serving as
an instrument to blunt the power of a progressive coalition and to divide farmers. At its inception, the
group worked with members of Congress who feared the Progressive movement. Called the “farm bloc,”
these farm-state legislators wanted to address their constituents' concerns without changing the structure