Agricultural Adjustment Administration

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which provided for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to adjust production of dairy products, wheat, corn, cotton, hogs, and rice, was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in January 1936. Prior to the Supreme Court ruling, 237 out of 254 Texas counties had complied with AAA production quotas. The 1936 Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act was supplemented in 1938 by a new Agricultural Adjustment Act providing compensation to producers who adjust the acreage of their soil-depleting crops, parity of price adjustments to those who do not overplant, federal crop insurance, and other benefits. The two programs combined provided Texas farmers with $292,821,000 in direct payments. In 1948 the only payments being made were those to assist farmers in carrying out soil-conservation practices; the Texas allocation for that purpose was $11,130,000. Between 1936 and 1946 Texas farmers engaged in thirty types of conservation, including terracing, construction of dams, contouring, pasture sodding, and tree planting. In 1938 county offices were set up, and the farmers in each community elected a committee of three to administer the program and a delegate to the county convention. The county convention chose a committee of three to direct the county program. The secretary of agriculture appointed a state director and a state committee of five farmers. The Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service replaced the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in 1945 when the AAA was absorbed by the Production and Marketing Administration of the United States Department of Agriculture.