Farm Legislation Research Articles

Marvin Jones: The Public Life of an Agrarian Advocate.

Son of a north Texas wheat- and cotton-farming family, Marvin Jones grew up with strong agrarian roots and a taste for Democratic politics. Elected to Congress in 1916, he joined the Texas delegation and learned the political ropes from John Nance Garner. Named to the House Agriculture Committee, Jones later became its chairman and directed the destiny of New Deal agricultural legislation in the House of Representatives. Jones's Panhandle district lay in the 1930s Dust Bowl. As Roosevelt's chairman of the Agriculture Committee, he fought for New Deal farm legislation--low-interest loans and mortgages for farmers, soil conservation, farm subsidies, agricultural research, and new markets for farm products. Many of today's federal agricultural policies were born in his committee room. As war food administrator in World War II, Jones put his knowledge and experience to use in balancing U.S. agricultural production with military and civilian food requirements. At war's end he accepted a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Claims and later became chief judge, noted for just, compassionate decisions couched in everyman's language. Jones was a gentle, hard-working man, a realist who extolled the rural life but accepted the urbanization of America. More reserved than his mentor, Garner, less shrewd than his good friend Sam Rayburn, Jones probably surpassed them both in terms of real achievement. Using archival sources and Jones's memoirs as well as his own numerous interviews with Judge Jones, Irvin May provides a solid account of this transplanted Texan who remained the farmer's advocate throughout his life.

Reconciling Agricultural Pricing, Environmental, Conservation, Energy, and Structural Concerns: Discussion

Farm legislation in 1981 is no more likely to change socio-economic or environmental issues than the legislation passed in 1977. The policy issues, with land use at the focus, may evolve during the 1980s, but farmers will have to join conservation and environmental coalitions if they want price and income policies to continue because of institutional barriers at the national level. A strong constituency to overcome these barriers will require single-issue groups to develop broader concerns which are sometimes conflicting. Government agencies will have to become more cooperative. Although the budget process should be able to reconcile conflicting policies, the basic institutional structure must change first. (DCK)

How Farmers Viewed Farm and Food Policy Issues Compared with Selected Provisions of the 1977 Agricultural Act

During November and December 1976, opinion surveys of a sample of commercial farmers were taken in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee to determine farmers' views on current issues relating to farm legislation that Congress would consider during 1977. The only differences in the questionnaires were inclusion of questions about commodities grown in the South that would not apply in the Midwest.

Management and Policy Implications of Cost and Return Budgets: Extension's Role in Formulation and Use*

In recent history, many agricultural economists have tended to view work on cost and return budgets as a pretty dull thing. They gave it very low priority. However, the attention given to production costs by the 1973 farm legislation, together with recent acceleration in cost of farm inputs, have somewhat reversed the significance attached to this subject. A casual review of articles in the AAEA Journal over the past three years shows little attention to cost of production per se, but I predict that in the next two years there will be a big increase.About two years ago, the term “cost of production” was just coming into use as a rallying cry by farm organizations, prior to the big jump in farm prices. This concern probably was a prime reason for the focus on costs in 1973 legislation. However, the issue was temporarily forgotten when farm prices increased sharply during the 1972–73 period.

Rigorously Enforce the Laws on Collective farm Democracy

The practice of supervision by the procuracy over exact and undeviating implementation of collective farm legislation shows that subsequent to the adoption of the Model Charter of a Collective Farm, the local Party, soviet, and agricultural agencies have carried out important measures for the development of collective farm democracy in the management of social production.

Experiences with Recent Price Stabilization Programs for Agriculture

The stabilization of farm prices and incomes has been a goal of all farm legislation dating back to the establishment of the Farm Board in 1929. After the Farm Board concept failed in the wake of the great crash of 1929, price stabilization turned more and more toward price supports with prices set above market equilibrium. To absorb the differential quantities that arose, loan and storage programs were established for major commodities. Stocks of accumulated grain were used in times of war or world grain production shortfalls to even out the flow of food to consumers

Farm Policy Legislation for the 1970's: The Farm Bureau Position

W HEN I accepted this assignment last February, I mistakenly assumed that I would have plenty of time to prepare my paper. I was, of course, well aware of the fact that controversy over a major farm bill often extends into the final days of a Congressional session; however, I was counting on an early adjournment. While the slow progress of farm legislation through the Congress has made problems for me, the action that took place in the House of Representatives last week certainly makes this a good time to discuss farm policy. Controversy is not new to farm legislation. It is always difficult to solve economic problems through the political process and this seems to be particularly true in agriculture. The current controversy is a part of a battle over the direction of farm policy that has been going on almost continuously since shortly after the end of World War II. The Food and Agriculture Act of 1965, which the Congress is now trying to replace, reflected Congressional rejection of mandatory controls for feed grains and the 1963 referendum vote against wheat quotas. When the four-year term of the Act of 1965 was extended for an additional year in 1968, the supporters of this action argued that (1) the new Administration, to be elected in November 1968, would need additional time to formulate and enact constructive proposals; and (2) a simple extension was the best way to dispose of a host of troublesome amendments, one of which would have placed a limit of $20,000 on individual payments. Thus, the 1968 extension of the 1965 Act provided a preview of the problems that have been encountered this year. The development of new farm legislation has been complicated by the House Agriculture Committee's long-standing policy of tying a number of unrelated programs together in an omnibus bill. The obvious purpose of this policy is to force the supporters of individual proposals to support the Committee's complete package. While the omnibus approach may tend to unite some supporters of unrelated proposals, it also can cause groups, such as Farm Bureau, to op-

Farm Legislation for the 1970's

American Journal of Agricultural EconomicsVolume 52, Issue 5 p. 676-677 Farm Policy Legislation in the 1970's Farm Legislation for the 1970's Don Paarlberg, Don Paarlberg director of agricultural economics for the U.S. Department of AgricultureSearch for more papers by this author Don Paarlberg, Don Paarlberg director of agricultural economics for the U.S. Department of AgricultureSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 December 1970 https://doi.org/10.2307/1237674AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume52, Issue5December 1970Pages 676-677 RelatedInformation

Government Payments and the Distribution of Income in Agriculture

ARM programs in the United States have long had the improvement of farm income as their professed goal. Explicit or implied in this goal has been the desire to adopt those farm policies that improve the income of low income farmers. In fact, Congress and farm organizations continue to use this justification for our farm legislation. However, recent publicity about extremely large payments to some producers and very small payments to others has caused many to question whether our farm programs have been an effective means of maintaining minimum farm income standards. It is the purpose of this paper to analyze the distributive effects of our agricultural programs and examine whether government payments have increased or reduced the inequality in the distribution of income in agriculture over the past few years.'

The New York Farm Bureau and the Legislative Processes: A Study in Agricultural Politics

This study analyzes the role of the New York Farm Bureau in the state legislative processes during 1961–1965. The method is empirical and analytical, with extensive interviews and legislative and Bureau reports providing the major sources of data. It supports more general analyses of pressure group politics, such as those of V. O. Key and David Truman, by showing how the organizational unity and efficiency of the Bureau, combined with favorable political and institutional factors, give an organized farm group greater political influence than its numbers would seem to warrant. The conclusion is similar to that demonstrated by Hadwiger and Talbot in their recent study of national agricultural politics: that legislators and groups representing farming areas still determine, for the most part, the contents of governmental farm legislation. There is a need for increased study of state politics and the role of pressure groups, and especially for studies of New York. This analysis is one of several efforts made in recent years to meet this need, and it continues in a more microscopic way the pioneering work done by Belle Zeller in the 1930's on New York pressure group politics.

Farmers' Perception of the Farm Problem

ARMERS' perception of the basic causes of the farm problem and its possible solutions affects their attitudes toward potential farm programs and the operational success of programs. These attitudes influence farm policy directly through the way farmers vote in referendums and indirectly through Congressional action on farm legislation. This paper outlines an attempt to measure wheat farmers' perception of the farm situation as part of a 1964 survey of 500 Oklahoma and Kansas farmers' attitudes and preferences. We first present the scores of farmers on 11 statements measuring their understanding of the farm problem, then compare these scores with those of university students and staff, and finally relate socio-economic characteristics and voting behavior of farmers to their perception scores. Table 1 presents the percentage distribution of farmer responses to 11 statements concerning the farm situation. These statements are listed according to the percentage of acceptable responses. The rating of a response as acceptable (meaning a keen perception of the farm problem) is based on the authors' judgment, which is of course fallible. Farmers showed the highest level of understanding of statement 1 (There is apt to be a shortage of food because so many people are moving off the farm). Seventy-three percent of the farmers disagreed with this statement. Farmers, in general, were aware of the difficulty in organizing U.S. farmers to control production (statement 2). Just over one-half of the 500 farmers agreed that the U.S. should consider the effect on other wheat-exporting countries when developing a wheat-export policy (statement 3). Thirty percent of the farmers indicated they felt that the government should support farm prices but it shouldn't try to tell farmers what to do (statement 4). This response may reflect strong dissatisfaction (apparent in other parts of the survey) with past acreage controls or failure to understand the enormous problems which would arise with price supports but no controls.

Farm Legislation in the 86th Congress

IN THE Preface to his excellent study, Congress Makes A Law, Stephen Bailey speaks of our national legislative process as follows: For most Americans the drama of Congressional policy-making is played behind closed curtains. It is much as though the citizenry were seated in a huge auditorium, allowed printed programs, but kept in almost total ignorance of what was happening on the stage.' One might well contend that he exaggerates the existing situation, but the picture he portrays certainly contains several elements of realism. The purpose of this article is to attempt to pull aside the curtain so that we may have at least a partial view of what happened in the areas of farm legislation in the 86th Congress (1959-60). The results of the November 1958 election brought about a substantial increase in the strength of the Democratic Party in Congress, or the statistics seemed to so indicate. In both houses there was an almost

Representation in Congress: The Case of the House Agriculture Committee

Students of American politics are told that our political system is fundamentally a representative democracy. Concepts of representaion, since Burke, have commonly employed his distinction between action taken in response to instructions from constituents and action based on an independent appraisal of the national interest. A very recent analysis has offered a refinement of this, by distinguishing three types: “delegate,” “trustee” and “politico.” Theory and history alike tell us, however, that a representative does not invariably act in only one of these roles. There have been a number of empirical studies of representatives, few of which concentrate on specific policy fields; and studies also of the play of interests in the enactment of specific legislation, but without a systematic account of the legislative committee members involved, acting in their representative capacities as they saw them. How then can we tell when to expect a representative to view his role in one way rather than another? The aim of this article is to shed a little light on some aspects of this broad question by means of a case study.The subjects of the study were the members of the House Agriculture Committee and their action on the omnibus farm legislation (H. R. 12954 and S. 4071) in 1958 (85th Congress, second session). Most of the data were obtained from interviews with thirty of the thirty-four Committee members but, in addition, the specific stands of members in subcommittees, the full committee, and on the House floor were traced, through the printed hearings and the Congressional Record of floor debates. Finally, other interested and knowledgeable people were interviewed, newspaper accounts were studied, and the characteristics of constituencies were examined.

Representation in Congress: The Case of the House Agriculture Committee

Students of American politics are told that our political system is fundamentally a representative democracy. Concepts of representaion, since Burke, have commonly employed his distinction between action taken in response to instructions from constituents and action based on an independent appraisal of the national interest. A very recent analysis has offered a refinement of this, by distinguishing three types: “delegate,” “trustee” and “politico.” Theory and history alike tell us, however, that a representative does not invariably act in only one of these roles. There have been a number of empirical studies of representatives, few of which concentrate on specific policy fields; and studies also of the play of interests in the enactment of specific legislation, but without a systematic account of the legislative committee members involved, acting in their representative capacities as they saw them. How then can we tell when to expect a representative to view his role in one way rather than another? The aim of this article is to shed a little light on some aspects of this broad question by means of a case study.The subjects of the study were the members of the House Agriculture Committee and their action on the omnibus farm legislation (H. R. 12954 and S. 4071) in 1958 (85th Congress, second session). Most of the data were obtained from interviews with thirty of the thirty-four Committee members but, in addition, the specific stands of members in subcommittees, the full committee, and on the House floor were traced, through the printed hearings and the Congressional Record of floor debates. Finally, other interested and knowledgeable people were interviewed, newspaper accounts were studied, and the characteristics of constituencies were examined.

Farm Legislation–1956

Farm Legislation–1956

The Politics of "Basic" Crops in Farm Legislation

The Politics of "Basic" Crops in Farm Legislation

Federal Farm Legislation: A Factual Appraisal

Federal Farm Legislation: A Factual Appraisal