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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture During the ’Thirties: Trends and Policies - 12. Farm Security Programs
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Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 275
to be passed on by committees of local farmers, over which Negroes have
practically no influence."^^ Under such circumstances, it is surprising that
Negroes have received a share which almost corresponds to their propor-
tion in the population. The Farm Security Administration has, from the
beginning, been fighting courageously and persistently against differential
treatment 5
the agency openly refers to it as ^^discriminatory” in several of
the surveys which it has made.
In a just appraisal of the program all such difficulties must be taken into
account. But there are still others. The laws and the system of law enforce-
ment give the tenant little protection against the landlord—in fact, they are
largely used for the purpose of making it easier for the landlord to exploit
the tenant." This situation must be considered in any evaluation of the
Farm Security Administration. It is obvious that it would have been more
efficient under a strong and impartial legal system. Further, to rehabilitate
tenants or other impoverished farmers, it is not enough merely to give
them loans, and then to sit back and expect them to pay it all back while
improving their economic status. It is a major educational job, and the great
thing is that the F.S.A. has faced it.
It is a question of teaching farmers, who have known about little but
specialized cash- and feed-crop production, to diversify their efforts, to grow
at home much of what they need for their own consumption. Farmers who
have been nothing but dependent tenants have to become independent
entrepreneurs. Former croppers, who have been exploited by the planters
and have known few other ways of improving their status than to induce
their landlords to give them as high advances as possible-r-and to move
away if they fail to get as much as they think they can get some other place
—have to learn quite a new kind of game. They have to learn that they,
from now on, have definite rights and definite obligations, and that it
usually pays to stay at the same place. Detailed farm and household plans
are made up for them—if they do not know how to do it themselves j
and
it is seen to that they stick to those plans as far as possible. They are
taught how to keep accounts. Some are illiterate j
their children sometimes
must be made to help them out. Many clients are without any resources
whatever when they start out. Their meager cash income, while they are
on the program, may dwindle to almost nothing because of unemploy-
ment, occasional crop failure or other circumstances. For such reasons they
need not only loans, but also straight subsidies. Clients who retain their
status as tenants have to fulfill their obligations to the landlords as well as
to the Farm Security Administration j
in such cases, there is often a rather
complicated three-cornered problem where much depends on the coopera-
tion of all parties concerned. Many clients have difficulties because they are
sickj a cooperative health program is organized for them.*^®
• See Chapter 1 x and Part VI.
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