The Price of Plenty
Getting Farm Policy Right in the 1960s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4155449 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sarah T Phillips (Boston University Associate professor of history at, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 109 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 596-620 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jaac346 |
| OpenAlex | W4311807149 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
At the press conference of May 22, 1963, the first question posed to John F. Kennedy concerned civil rights: How would the president respond to Governor George Wallace's threat to block the integration of the University of Alabama? After Kennedy answered (he hoped the students would be admitted without federal involvement), reporters quickly moved on to other topics: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; India; trade negotiations with Europe; Guantanamo Bay; Vietnam; the nuclear test ban treaty; a newly documented link between cigarettes and cancer; and the president's upcoming audience with the Pope. The questioners circled back to civil rights just once more, making that subject and Cuba the only issues privileged by two questions apiece. There was one topic, however, on which the president was called to speak no less than five times in this brief session with the press: the wheat referendum of the previous day.1 The wheat referendum? On May 21 American farmers voted down an administration proposal that would have required significant cuts in grain output in exchange for higher guaranteed prices. The farm programs inherited from the New Deal had not successfully controlled production (despite the goal of “supply management”) because a technological revolution in agriculture had raised farm productivity to unforeseen levels, and farmers were never really beholden to restrictions on output, only to limits on the acreage under cultivation. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States maintained farm prices higher than world market prices, and, at considerable expense, stored the portion—the surplus—that it could not sell, donate, or dump. At the peak of this storage regime, in the late 1950s, the government ran out of room in the usual holding spots—warehouses, elevators, and terminal markets—and started shoving grain into abandoned movie theaters and empty Texas oil tanks. By 1959, owing to commodity storage costs, agricultural expenditures made up the third largest item in the federal budget, following only defense outlays and interest on the debt.2
Administration (probate law · Economic growth · Economics · Entitlement (fair division · Farm programs · Negotiation · Payment · Political science · Politics · Productivity · Referendum · Treaty · Agricultural Economics and Policy · Finance · Law · Public Administration
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |