The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was passed by Congress in May 1933 to provide as a means to bring directed and effective help to farmers by reducing production of huge agricultural surpluses that was depressing the market prices. A new tax was imposed on the processing industries in the belief that it would stabilized prices of agricultural products and use the funds from the taxes to distribute as a subsidy to those who agreed to a reduction of crops. The only compulsory provision was a universal tax on processor industries, this would cause a nationwide public disapproval once it was in full progress. Farmers were to be provided cash benefit payments for cutting production of major farm commodities. In Oklahoma this included cotton, wheat, and hog numbers. For the first year of the AAA the farmers had to plow over their already planted crops in order to receive cash payments after signing a contract with the government of their indent. A fierce critic of acreage of production controls was John A. Simpson, the former president of the Oklahoma Farmers Union and president of the National Farmers’ Union during the signing of the act vehemently opposed the New Deal agency due to his assumption of the “dole out” for all programs and his opposition to the domestic allotment plan to achieve parity for farmers by curtailing production. Even though he fought hard to keep Oklahoma farmers from signing the contracts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 87,794 cotton farmers signed contracts to plow under the required acres to qualify for payments that amount to $15,792,287 in 1933. [1]

In 1936 most of the Act was declared unconstitutional and although benefit payments ran in the millions given to Oklahomans, it did not help farmers on small acreages or the tenant farmers. For the tenant farmers most of the money paid out for plowing over the crops was given to the land owners and was not split between tenant and owner. Another factor was the drought during the depression that already had cause crops to failed. George C. Fite declares that although the AAA was important to Oklahomans and help in many factors, however, its largest benefit was setting a pattern for making direct payments to farmers under a wide variety of programs during the remainder of the twentieth century.

Sources

  1. Gilbert C. Fite, “Agricultural Adjustment Act,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture