Agricultural Development System in America:

¶ … agricultural development system in America: The Dust Bowl and the Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck's novel the Grapes of Wrath is a fictional account of a very real period of American history -- when the soil literally blew away on the farmlands of America. Stressed from overplanting and overharvesting, the land could yield no more and "and then the dispossessed were drawn west…streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless -- restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do -- to lift, to push, to pick, to cut -- anything, any burden to bear, for food" (Steinbeck 233). Steinbeck paints a moving and compassionate portrait of the individuals who lost family farms and nearly starved to death upon the cruel land. However, the families of the Dust Bowl were not wholly innocent victims, and the dust storms that swept over the plains states of the Americas could have been predicted, given the faulty agricultural policies pursued by farmers in the region. Farmers, once insulated from economic depressions because of their ready supplies of food, now suffered two catastrophe during the 1930s: one economic, the other environmental (Worster 2004, p.3).

The causes of the ten-year series of catastrophic dust storms could be traced back to the 19th century when the first settlers arrived on the Great Plains, knowing little about the regions' climate. Purely by change, the major period of settlement occurred during a historically anomalous 'wet' period: "the first crops flourished, so settlers were encouraged to continue practices," such as planting in straight lines and planting as many crops as the soil could hold ("What is drought," NDMC, 2010). Observed Hugh Hammond Bennett, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Chief of Soil Conversation, "Americans have been the greatest destroyers of land of any race or people, barbaric or civilized" ("Bennett," 2010, PBS). "God didn't create this land to be plowed up…he created it for Indians and the buffalo," said one settler, ruefully, reflecting on the damage that had been wrought (Egan, 1994, p.9).

During the 19th century, Congress also seemed to have little understanding of how to improve the soil. Legislative acts such as the Timber Culture Act of 1873 supported the planting of trees to increase rainfall. However, it was not trees alone that brought rain: rather, it was the need for deeply-rooted trees to hold in the region's precious rainfall. It was said that Native Americans, who had been hunting and gathering upon the land for years, told the settlers to leave the grass where it was, and were ignored (Wooster 2010). Instead, "men began to clear the land -- using the endless prairie to grow wheat, and the trees to build houses, barns and outbuildings. What was unknown to these early pioneers was that the grass and trees of the plains essentially nourished and held the soil in place with their tough roots. When they were gone, the moisture that would have gone to the roots ran off into creeks, streams and rivers -- basically carrying the land with it" ("The Dust Bowl," U.S. History, 2010). Farmers were proud of their conquest of nature for "profit or adventure" in the West, not ashamed of it (Worster 1994, p.3).

Efforts to promote sustainability met further obstacles in the 1920s. "With the onset of World War I, the demand for wheat had been astonishing. Farmers were paid record prices. Thus, to the farmer, it made sense to turn every inch of the Southern Plains into profit. During the war, the land produced millions and millions of bushels of wheat and corn, which helped to feed America as well as numerous nations overseas" ("The Dust Bowl," U.S. History, 2010). After World War II, crop prices plummeted. This meant that "farmers needed to cultivate more land to produce enough to meet their required payments. Since most of the best farming areas were already being used, poorer farmlands were increasingly used. Farming sub-marginal lands often had negative results, such as soil erosion and nutrient leaching. By using these areas, farmers were increasing the likelihood of crop failures, which increased their vulnerability to drought" ("What is drought," NDMC, 2010).

Advances in technology also necessitated greater expenditures of capital for farmers to keep pace with one another. The so-called wonders of technology meant that farmers had switched from the lister plow to the more efficient one-way disc plow, "which also greatly increased the risk of blowing soil" ("What is drought," NDMC, 2010). A record wheat crop in 1931 further drove down the price of food. Greater expenditures upon technology also meant that farmers were more indebted to banks than ever before. "At the peak of farm transfers in 1933 -- 34, nearly 1 in 10 farms changed possession, with half of those being involuntary (from a combination of the depression and drought) ("What is drought," NDMC, 2010). As Steinbeck writes in the voice of a hypothetical displaced farmer: "Pa borrowed money from the bank and now the bank wants to own the land" (Steinbeck 151). Civil and social unrest began to increase: "The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased" (Steinbeck 238). Americans were literally starving to death with only "dust to eat" and without foliage to protect the land from the sun, many died from heat exhaustion as temperatures climbed above 114 in a world without air-conditioning (Cooper 2004, p. 12)

Farmers such as the Joads in Steinbeck's novel fled to California, desperate for work of any kind, even picking fruit, although they once had owned their own land. Farmers transitioned from owners to sharecroppers to migrant laborers, as they grew more and more desperate for work. The fact that the U.S. economy as a whole was sinking deeper and deeper into the Great Depression meant that there was less work for everyone, not just farmers. "Many California farms were corporate owned, meaning they were larger and more modernized than what the farmers were used to. Families often lived in tar-paper shacks with no floor or plumbing" ("The Dust Bowl," U.S. History, 2010).