In the 1920s demand for American farm products fell, as European countries began to recover from World War I and instituted austerity programs to reduce their imports. The result was a sharp drop in farm prices. This period was more disastrous for farmers than earlier times had been, because farmers were no longer self-sufficient. They were paying for machinery, seed, and fertilizer, and they were also buying consumer goods. The prices of the items farmers bought remained constant, while prices they received for their products fell. These developments were made worse by the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and extended throughout the 1939s.
20世纪20年代，随着欧洲国家开始从第一次世界大战中复苏并实行紧缩政策减少进口，美国农产品的需求下降，导致农产品价格急剧下跌。这一时期对农民来说比早期更具灾难性，因为农民不再自给自足。他们支付机械、种子和化肥的费用，还得购买消费品。农民购买的商品价格保持不变，而收获的产品价格下降。1929年开始并持续到1939年的大萧条使这些事态发展变得更糟。
In 1929, under President Herbert Hoover, the Federal Farm Board was organized. It established the principle of direct interference with supply and demand, and it represented the first national commitment to provide greater economic stability for farmers.
1929年，在赫伯特·胡佛总统的领导下，成立了联邦农业委员会。它确立了直接干预供求的原则，代表了为农民提供更大经济稳定的首个国家承诺。
President Hoover’s successor attached even more importance to this problem. One of the first measures proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took office in 1933 was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was subsequently passed by Congress. This law gave the Secretary of Agriculture the power to reduce production through voluntary agreements with farmers who were paid to take their land out of use. A deliberate scarcity of farm products was planned in an effort to raise prices. This law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the grounds that general taxes were being collected to pay one special group of people. However, new laws were passed immediately that achieved the same result of resting soil and providing flood-control measures, but which were based on the principle of soil conservation. The Roosevelt Administration believed that rebuilding the nation’s soil was in the national interest and was not simply a plan to help farmers at the expense of other citizens. Later the government guaranteed loans to farmers so that they could buy farm machinery, hybrid grain, and fertilizers.
胡佛总统的继任者更加重视这个问题。富兰克林·D·罗斯福总统1933年上任时提出的第一项措施是《农业调整法》，该法案随后被国会通过。这项法律赋予农业部长通过与农民签订自愿协议来减少产量的权力，农民获得了停止使用土地的报酬。为了提高价格，计划故意稀缺农产品。最高法院宣布这项法律违宪，理由是征收普通税是为了支付一个特殊群体的费用。然而，新的法律立即通过，取得了同样的结果，即休养生息和提供防洪措施，但这些法律是基于土壤保持的原则。罗斯福政府认为，重建国家土地符合国家利益，而不仅仅是以牺牲其他公民为代价帮助农民的计划。后来，政府为农民提供贷款担保，使他们能够购买农业机械、杂交谷物和肥料。
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