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The Story of Rural Health

Part of a poster featuring images of white farmers, a plough, fields of crops, and the words "administration" and "provides better farms and better homes."
Farm Service Agency Poster from the Great Depression era.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act is passed in response to Great Depression.

Date: 1933

The Story of Rural Health
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Farm Service Agency Poster from the Great Depression era.

The Act is the first time that the federal government attempts to control inflated market prices for agricultural products and livestock by paying farmers to destroy their crops and animals and to not plant new crops. It also funds refinancing for large-scale industrial farms, ignoring small farmers and tenant farmers, who are largely Black and immigrant folks. As large-scale landowners accept cash incentives to take acreage out of production, many will evict tenant farmers living on their land.