Post Mechanization

Exemplifies that farmers needed new mechinary in order to stay competitive but also needed it at an affordable level. 

Shows how many Allis Chlamer tractors were sold in Lexington, MS during november of 1940.

After the first gasoline powered tractor was released farmers wanted other gas powered machines such as sowers and reapers, this newly mechanized industry would never be able to go back to the old ways of farming discussed earlier in this exhibit. Gone were the days of horse-drawn tools and intense manual labor. However this mechanization came at a cost, in order for farmers to remain successful they had to continually stay up to date with the new productive machinery. Some farmers even need to run several gas engines to keep with production demands, Philip S. Rose writes in the Scientific American, “The small farm of only an acre or two needs at least one, while the large farms need several.”.¹ With the levels of demand, machines with gas engines steadily rose in price, to the point where farmers could no longer financially keep pace. They turned to credit, and continued buying innovative mech with money they did not have in hopes that the mech would increase production outputs and therefore increase their profit margins.² This unfortunately did not happen and many farmers were forced into bankruptcy. The Farmers who could afford to keep with the times were no better off. Because of the massive increase of production, thanks to efficient machinery, crops began to be overproduced and as a result plummeted in price.³ Farmers continued to overproduce and they too  much like their machine-less counterparts fell into a cycle of debt. The Southern Atlantic region experienced a twelve percent increase of mortgage debt from 1925-1928 also, the proportion of farm foreclosures within this area was the largest of any geographical location in the continental United States.⁴ After a few years of trying to make ends meet, foreclosure and forced migrations were the only options left. 

The economic crisis plaguing the agricultural industry got so distressing that the U.S. government had to issue a declaration of emergency and passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. This Act was set to relieve the current economic emergency by increasing the purchasing power held by the agriculture industry and by providing emergency relief to individuals who went into debt as a result of the crisis.⁵  

A new relationship between gas powered machine production and agricultural production was created and holds an inseparable bond; one cannot exist without the other.  Agriculture needs new innovative tech to keep up with its ever increasing demands and machine producers need agriculture to continue being its main source of profit.