Between 1940 and 1960, American agricultural production grew dramatically while the number of farm workers declined by nearly one-third. What some historians have described as "nearly miraculous agricultural productivity" was achieved. This was accomplished as a consequence of greater crop specialization, intensive use of fertilizers, and increased mechanization of farm work itself. The decline of the family farm and the growth of what came to be called "agribusiness" changed the environment in which agricultural production in the United States took place. Larger farmers benefited from mechanization and from various federal government policies and programs while smaller producers suffered due to a lack of capital needed to invest in the machinery that was required to compete. Consequently, although the average farm size doubled between 1940 and 1964, the farm population declined from 30 million to 13 million and the number of farms decreased by about 40 percent.
It was in this general climate that President Dwight D. Eisenhower and, later, President John F. Kennedy developed and implemented specific policies and programs targeting the farm sector. The purpose of this report is to move from a brief overview of the farm problems of the era to a focus on Kennedy's views on agriculture and the optimum farm policy that his administration developed. It will be argued that during his presidential campaign in 1960 and in various legislative submissions to Congress such as the Agricultural Act of 1961 and the Food and Agricultural Act of 1962, President Kennedy demonstrated support for a number of farm groups as well as a partisan political response to the farm issue. Both primary and secondary sources will be employed to address this issue.
The Eisenhower Administration and the Agricultural Sector
Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected to the presidency in 1952 on a Republican Party platform with a distinctly Jeffersonian ideol...