Federal Crop Allotment Programs and Responses by Individual Farm Operators

FEDERAL CROP ALLOTMENT PROGRAMS AND RESPONSES BY INDIVIDUAL FARM OPERATORS James S. Fisher* The array of forces which have modified rural land use systems in the United States during the past several decades includes centralized decision making by the federal government. (1) The basic objective has been to maintain realistic prices for commodities produced by the farmer to insure that he remains a viable component of the economy. Parity levels and price supports have been the basic means of assuring the farmer a reasonable return for his efforts. However, to avoid the problem of overproduction, the crop acreage allotment has been devised as a means of controlling the planted acreages of selected crops. In simplest terms it is merely the right of an individual to produce certain crops in specified acreages. (2) It has an areal connotation and is, therefore, as relevant as farm size to a proper understanding of agricultural production systems. Centralized decision making by the federal government is oriented to commodity control. The policies established and decisions made reflect attempts to control the national production of specified crops by acreage allotments. However, the responses to these decisions are by individual farmers, who are attempting to maintain a viable agricultural production system at the farm level within the constraints of the acreage allotment structure. It has been argued that, if people are the ultimate respondents, programs should be so oriented rather than toward commodities. (3) This paper focuses upon the responses of individual farmers to acreage control programs as reflected in their use of allotted cropland acreages. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY AREA. Data on allotment size and use are found in county Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service offices. Unfortunately, this information is not available in compiled form, even at the county office level. Therefore, large quantities of potentially useful data are not readily available and analyses of allotment use over large areas are seriously hampered. A second data source, but much less useful, is the Annual Report o f the State ASCS Office. (4) The crop acreage allotment is fundamental to an understanding of the American agricultural production system, but it has not been deemed significant enough to warrant inclusion in agricultural reports by the U. S. Bureau of the Census. Data for this study were obtained for more than 6,500 farm units in nine counties of Georgia (Figure 1). The counties were selected in a deliberate *Dr. Fisher is assistant professor of geography at the University of Georgia, Athens. Th e paper was accepted for publication in May 1970. S o u t h e a s t e r n G e o g r a p h e r Figure 1 Vol. X, No. 2 49 attempt to insure that a variety of allotted crops would be included. In each of the three areas cotton remains a significant source of farm income, while the importance of tobacco and peanuts varies widely from one area to another (Table 1). Each of these major cash crops is under federal agricultural programs of a regulatory nature. Thus, an opportunity is pro­ vided to examine the relationships between federal agricultural programs and the operational procedures of individual farmers in using their acreage allotments. Table 1 Acreage Allotments For Selected Georgia Counties—1968a Counties Cotton Tobacco Peanuts Oconee 7,856 b _ _ Morgan 13,844 -- -Walton 18,631 -- -Candler 6,581 1,628.38 1,432 Jenkins 11,534 174.04 3,245 Emanuel 16,373 1,538.32 3,261 Turner 7,782 186.80 19,509 Crisp 10,329 25.35 14,221 Worth 18,483 1,528.53 30,050 Total 111,413 5,081.42 71,718 ^Source; U. S. Departm ent of Agriculture, State ASCS Office, Annual Report, 1968 (Athens, Georgia ). bAII values are in acres. THE ADJUSTMENT PROCESS AND NEW FORMS OF TENANCY. For more than three decades farmers interested in producing certain cash crops have received price supports to improve their markets for these crops and to stabilize their position in the agricultural economy. In opposition, acreage controls and marketing quotas have substantially reduced the total acreage of these crops planted on each landholding. Acreage allotments have been used not only...