at raising farm prices through government loans to agricultural cooperatives
failed in its objectives largely because of worldwide depression, associated with
declining prices, and because there was no provision for the control of production.
Production control was accepted for the first time in the United States with the
passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. Control was based on the area
planted rather than supply limitation. As production efficiency increased with
the introduction of new technology and modern farming methods, the effect of
restricting the area planted was partially or fully offset. Under an amendment to
the 1933 act, a Grain Stabilization Board was established to provide direct subsidies
for agricultural exports. In addition, a Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) was
created to buy and sell agricultural commodities and make loans to farmers. The
CCC became the vehicle for managing agricultural surpluses and the basis for
the first structured US food aid programmes drawing from the mounting food
surpluses. The scope of the CCC was widened by an amendment to the Agricul-
tural Adjustment Act in 1935, which authorized its use of customs revenues to
subsidize agricultural exports and encourage domestic production. The outbreak
of the Second World War in 1939 led eventually to the passing of the Lend-Lease
Act of 1941 (signed before US entry into the war in December of that year). Under
this act, some $6 billion of agricultural products were shipped to the Allied powers.
ated. These operated largely within a network of associated states or communities,
such as the British Commonwealth, the French Community, the Portuguese
overseas territories, and the Belgian, German and Italian overseas territories.
food production. In the United States, price support was increased on basic food
crops and introduced, for the first time, on animal products. The continuation
of incentives in the United States after the war, and of price support in Canada,
together with advancing technology, led to the accumulation of large surpluses,
especially of wheat and dairy products, during the 1950s. Price support was intro-
duced and maintained to ensure a reasonable income for farming communities
not to increase production, although this was its effect. After the Second World
War, the United States continued essentially the same price support policies that
had been developed during the war. From time to time, the support levels were
lowered and area planting restrictions reintroduced for the principal crops but
production continued to increase. The concept of supply management was intro-
duced to adjust supply to domestic and foreign needs for some major food crops
and food grains with some effect, but not for dairy products, leading to serious
surplus problems. Following President Hoover's example after the First World
War, a European Recovery Programme, more popularly known as the Marshall
Plan (named after its originator, George Marshall, Secretary of State in President
Truman's administration) resulted in the largest transfer of bilateral aid in history.
Of the total aid package of $13.5 billion supplied between 1948 and 1953, about
a quarter was committed in food, feed and fertilizer.