What impact did the Great Depression have on farmers?

Answer 1

Farming in America suffered from the Great Depression as perhaps no other line of work, and its effects imnpacted the rest of the economy too. To begin with, farming was a more dominant part of the economy in the 1930's by far than today. The roots of the depression on the farms actually began in the 1920's when low commodity prices led many farmers to borrow money to fill the void. Some also borrowed heavily to keep pace wiht the times with new mororized equipment, especially tractors and trucks. Then, with the Depression, as bankers became fearful of repayment, many began to demand loans repaid, but many farmers could not repay. In many cases they were evicted off what had been their land. The famous book, "Grapes of Wrath" outlines the tragic nauture of this in a mythical Oklahoma community. The novel also describes how new farm machinery of the era could do so much more with less workers, and this also pushed people into unemployment. Farm prices of most types dropped even lower with the onset of the Depression. As city people trimmed back meat purchases, a relative luxury item, the markets for finished pigs and cattle dropped to the point where in some case a farmer got less money for their livestock than it cost to ship the livestock to market. Even nature was an enemy throughout the Depression. Severe droughts of the era and resulting dust storms destroyed crops and stripped topsoil. A movie made about the harsh farming of the era is called "The Drylanders" depicts another farm family, in Saskatchewan, coping on thir land with the drought, gradually giving up any semblance of luxury. The last luxury, the family car, ends up being pulled by horses. In turn, as farming was such an important industry within the economy of the time, farmers purchases declined radically and impacted manufacturing and retailers, creating unemployment off the farm too.

Answer 2

During the Great depression, agriculture was effected greatly. Since there had been a massive Stock Market crash, prices were already dropping down fast. Farmers didn't have money to support there animals or crops and even by selling there goods they lost profit. Some small farms were closed down. But more advanced farms manged to support themselves and made it through the Depression.

Answer 3

Farming life was horrible during the great depression, during World War I the government had givenAmerican farmers many subsidies (government loans and many other things) to encourage farmers to produce more so that the U.S. could sell resources over to Europe but after the war the demand for farm goods went dramatically down so the government stoped giving subsidies to farmers therefore farmers had no money to pay for tools but were still responsible for all the land they had, so they went into debt and prices of farm goods dropped.

Answer 4

They could not sell there crops because town-folk could not afford to buy them

Answer 5

There was a record drought that dried out all crops and the dry winds that were caused blew dust and buried towns and farms.