Farm Bills: 1970s and 1980s Agricultural Policy Shifts

Although amendments had been made to each Farm Bill since 1933, the first major U.S. agricultural policy overhaul was not until 1973, culminating in a shift toward favoring industrial agricultural production. In 1972, amid high oil prices and widespread drought in the Midwestern United States, President Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, arranged a sale of U.S. grain to the Soviet Union, also suffering from drought, immediately causing a steep spike in food prices. In response, Butz helped draft the Agricultural and Consumer Protection Act of 1973, which encouraged farmers to increase production by planting “fencerow to fencerow.” To do this, farmers, particularly in the fertile plains of the upper Midwest, converted wetlands and forests into cropland. Farmers also turned to intensive monocropping to increase yields per acre, which in turn required more intensive irrigation and application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.