Link: (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1236980.pdf) (please note some [thumbnail] photographs are borrowed and accredited to different websites on the Internet).
In this article, Walter Wilcox (former Director of Agricultural Economics for the USDA) discusses the amendments to United States farm price support policies throughout the mid-1960s. During this period, there were a few major post-WW2 legislations that significantly adjusted the agriculture export market of the United States, including the 'Food and Agricultural Act of 1965', 'Food for Freedom' legislation of 1966, and 'International Grains Agreement'. These policies were designed to complement each other with the mutual goal of ensuring that domestic agricultural products would be priced competitively in the international export market. After researching the impacts of these legislation packages on regional farmers and agricultural communities, this article addresses the following research questions: How did American farm products remain internationally competitive in the context of these new price support policies? Also, why did a majority of political analysts believe that these post-war pieces of legislation would expand the United States acreage yields faster than commercial market outlets?
The Food and Agricultural Act of 1965 was a piece of four-year legislation that called for stabilization and adjustment programs covering feed grains, wheat, and cotton in an effort to achieve a new market balance between agricultural supply and consumer demand. Subsequently, this legislation reduced mandatory acreage restrictions and decreased subsidies for large agricultural exports in order to fairly emphasized the domestic economy of U.S agriculture. The Food for Freedom legislation in 1966 also extended the benefits of certain food aid programs. This legislation provided a five-year adjustment period in which long-term credit arrangements were promoted, compared to marketplace interactions based on the exchange of local currencies. Furthermore, the International Grains Agreement created “modestly higher minimum and maximum export prices for wheat and a (global) aid-sharing arrangement in which both exporting and importing countries agree to share the burden of providing food aid and agricultural development assistance to developing countries.” Through the adoption of this agreement, the U.S. marketed that other foreign nations would also assume more responsibility in sharing the workload of providing international food aid to vulnerable communities.
The Agricultural Act of 1965 was the first piece of legislation that was able to recognize the continuity of issues that accompany the developmental management of a stable market for major domestic farm products. This legislation provided significant flexibility to the Secretary of Agriculture at the time, Orville L. Freeman, who was responsible for addressing the stabilization of supply pricing and farm income. Moreover, the Food for Freedom legislation in 1966 also administered better distribution programs for (food) stocks held in reserved capacity by removing some restrictions placed upon food aid programs. The International Grains Agreement adjusted food aid programs by placing greater emphasis on self-help and international cooperation in order to address the issue of world hunger. Some analysts were concerned that this legislation placed a lot of pressure on developing countries to meet the expanding demand of a global market. However, the U.S. was the only nation during this time withholding some agricultural stocks and conserving production capacity, which was anticipated to stabilize the growth of international commercial markets.
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