TABLE 8.-Agricultural production,1 employment, and productivity indexes, United States, 5-year averages, 1910-39, and single years, 1940-43 (index numbers, 1910-14-100) 1 Production for sale and for consumption in the farm home. Mr. TAYLOR. Although no greater total number of workers will be needed in agriculture after the war, many persons now working on farms are expected to drop out of the labor force following the war and many farmers will desire to alleviate the arduousness of their work by hiring extra help. Furthermore, a goodly number of farmers retire each year under normal curcumstances and there is some evidence that because a good many have postponed retirement during the war period there will be an increased number of farm vacancies created immediately following the war. Employment opportunities in agriculture at the end of the war will be primarily opportunities arising from the need of replacements for persons now working on farms who will withdraw from the labor force after the war ends and the manpower scarcity is over. attempt is made here to estimate what the volume of reemployment opportunities on farms will be because of these withdrawals. An If no greater proportion of the farm population of working ages remains in the farm labor force after the war than in 1940, there will be about 700,000 fewer women, youths, and old people working on farms then than there are now. An additional 100,000 to 200,000 nonfarm residents who are only "pinch-hitting" for regular farm workers may be expected to give up their farm work after the war. Probably more than 100,000 adult workers can be used to replace a much larger number of children not normally classified in the working age group who are now helping out with the agricultural work. All of these possible withdrawals may create replacement opportunities in agriculture at the end of the war for approximately 1,000,000 workers. There has apparently been a slowing down in farm operator retirement ever since the beginning of the depression. Retirements postponed during the depression because of lack of resources to fall back on and during war because of the lack of younger men to replace aging operators may involve as many as 220,000 farm operators by the end of the war. Thus a maximum of approximately 220,000 1 If farm operators other than sharecroppers had retired during the 1930-40 decade at the same rate operators of corresponding ages retired during the 1920-30 decade there would have been 113,000 fewer farm operators 55 years of age in 1940 than there actually were. The normal farm operator retirement rate expected during the 1940-50 decade amounts to about 54,000 per year. If this rate has been cut in half during the war years, 1941-44, because of the lack of younger men to replace aging operators, then there have been only 108,000 operator retirements during that period, making a total cumulative deficit of operator retirements of 221,000, of which only 111,000 are estimated to involve farms with $600 or more total value of production in 1939. These must be considered maximum estimates because they are based on the assumption of the continuation of the 1940 number of farms during the war years. Actually the number of farms has probably decreased considerably. farm operators may be expected to turn their farms over to younger men at the end of the war. It should be emphasized, however, that these vacancies will not create the volume of agricutural opportunity which might be assumed, because nearly one-half of these retirements will probably be from farms which had a total value of production of less than $600 in 1939. In other words, only 110,000 bona fide farm opportunities can be expected to develop from this source. Nor should it be assumed that all of the vacancies created by the withdrawal of these various classes of persons will be available to those who may desire to return to agriculture following the war. Each year after the war, when the 18-year-olds will no longer be immediately subject to military service, the normal increase in the farm population of working age will tend to rapidly close the gap of farm employment opportunities. If the national economy is operating at a high enough level to warrant it, approximately 40,000,000 acres of undeveloped land largely not now in farms but suitable and feasible of development through clearing, drainage and irrigation might create from 250,000 to 300,000 new family type farm units. These lands, could, however be brought under cultivation only slowly and at considerable expense. _About 4,000,000 acres are within existing drainage enterprises in Eastern and Mississippi Valley States and an additional 13,000,000 acres are outside of drainage districts. Another fairly large class of undeveloped land is five to ten million acres of woodland suitable for development by clearing but not needing drainage or irrigation. A total of about 8,000,000 acres are now in irrigation projects which are partly developed but authorized for development or in the stages of advanced planning. An additional 10,000,000 acres could be irrigated if all physically feasible projects were developed. Table 9 presents the tabulation of these rough estimates of undeveloped land suitable and feasible of development for farming should the need for farm products become too great to be met satisfactorily by land already in farms. (Table 9 follows:) TABLE 9.-Rough estimates of undeveloped land partly outside farms suitable and feasible of development for farming if the need for farm products is too large to be met satisfactorily by land already in farms 1. Land in existing drainage enterprises available for farming if cleared and improved.. Acres 4, 000, 000 2. Land outside drainage districts which is suitable and feasible to 13, 000, 000 5, 000, 000 4. Estimated land area which can be watered from irrigation projects Total_ 8, 000, 000 10, 000, 000 40, 000, 000 Mr. TAYLOR. A preliminary classification of the 7,000,000 acres purchased by the War and Navy Departments indicates that about 3,500,000 acres are suitable for agricultural use. It is not at the present known how much of this land will be released for agricultural uses but if all of it that is suitable for farming is released then approxi mately 8,000 family-sized farms of the type and size adapted to the localities where they are could be made available for settlement. These figures indicate that new opportunities for land settlement are quite limited. Hence land-settlement policies need to be carefully worked out and guidance provided to assure successful operation of the farm by the settler and an adequate level of living for himself and his family. A report issued by the Department of Agriculture entitled, "What Post-war Policies for Agriculture," includes the following recommendations: Although we favor reclamation of new land as needed, a cardinal principle of national economic policy should be to prevent agriculture from becoming the dumping ground for the industrial unemployed. There should be no back-to-theland movement after this war in the sense of a net movement of urban people to farms. If we have such a movement it will be evidence of economic retrogression. Senator TAFT. Well, do you count in your retrogression these 322,000 fewer workers? Do you contemplate that you are going to take those back on the farm? Mr. TAYLOR. Yes; I don't know which particular workers, but it all adds up to about a million people in the labor forces who we think will withdraw or be drawn out. Senator TAFT. So that about a million people will go to the farms? Mr. TAYLOR. From some source. But, of course, I call attention to the fact that each year there are boys now living on farms who will move up into the farm-labor force and be candidates for farming opportunities. WHAT LEVEL OF FARM POPULATION CAN WE EXPECT AND PLAN FOR AFTER THE WAR? In an attempt to estimate or predict volumes of net population movement to and from farms after the war, a knowledge of trends of such movements in the past must be used. 1 The record of migration from farms over the past 25 years shows a close inverse relation to the productive level at which our economy was functioning. When the number of nonagricultural jobs available increased, the number of people who migrated from farms increased and the farm population decreased. This relation was so close that the actual year-by-year level of the farm population since 1920 can be closely estimated from the level of nonagricultural employment each year. The period of the early and middle 1920's, with its relatively more prosperous conditions in urban areas than on farms, was a period of high outmigration from farms. The decline of general business prosperity in the last part of the decade was accompanied by a decline of migration from farms. During the depression which followed there was almost a complete stoppage of the usual flow of persons from farms and at one time in fact a reverse flow. Agriculture became the haven or the "poorhouse" for many of the industrially unemployed. This unguided migration back to farms resulted in population increases in the areas least able to support more people.2 During the latter half of the 1930's, the return of even a moderately better economic situation led to a quick response in movement from 1 See charts I and II, Movement to and From Farms, United States, 1920-42, and Farm Population Estimated From Nonagricultural Employment Levels, 1920-44, Compared With Actual Farm Population Estimates, 1910-44. See chart III, Number of Farms, Increase, 1930-35. farms. Natural increase was, however, adding some 350,000 to 400,000 to the farm population each year, and it, therefore, required the 7 years from 1933 to 1940 for the farm population to lose the abnormal expansion of nearly 2,000,000 persons which occurred during the depression from 1930-1932 (charts I and II). The long-time changes in farm population with two trends projected are shown in chart IV 1 [indicating on chart]. 1 This chart [indicating on chart I] is the migration record of net movements, and here is what was happening during the period you might say of prosperity, particularly to 1926 when it reached a high peak and then gradually began to fall, and in the 1 year 1932 there was actually a net migration to farms right at the heart of the depression. Then as things became alleviated it went the other way again [indicating]. The second chart I think is exceedingly significant from the standpoint of comparison of agricultural and farm population with total employment opportunities. From the line or curve representing industrial employment an estimate was made as to what theoretically should happen, upon the assumption that the outmovement of farm population is correlated very closely with the opportunity for industrial employment. Here are the actual movements of farm population [indicating on chart II]. It would seem to indicate that if you can know what industrial employment is going to be you very nearly know what the movement of population is going to be to and off the farms. Now, more people went back to the farms in 1932 than left the farms [pointing to chart I]. Senator HAWKES. How long did that continue? Mr. TAYLOR. Just the 1 year. These figures are developed from questionnaires sent out by the Crop and Livestock Reporting Service. Specific questions are asked about what happened to this family and the family on every farm adjacent to it, and the two dates are set as of January 1. It was in that 1 year 1932 when there was a net movement to farms. Between 1930 and 1935 approximately 500,000 new farms came into existence. These are the locations [indicating on chart III]. This shows you where the biggest, blackest spot is, in the Appalachians and the Ozarks, and then around the industrial centers which were largely part-time farms, many of which got classified in the farm category in the census because people who were industrially employed or only partially employed worked their small acreage harder and made $250 and thus the tract got classified as a farm. But it shows you where the people did move and where the farms were created. Senator TAFT. Does that show you the division of farms too-where the farms were cut up? Mr. TAYLOR. It could, very easily, but I don't know whether it does. A great many people had gone out of this Appalachian area to Detroit and other places, to industrial jobs, and when the depression hit they just went back to where they came from. I traveled out of Huntington, W. Va. I remember driving with the county agent all over that vicinity. We saw people living in 1 Farm Population, United States, 1910-44. 91183-44-pt. 3-4 |