12. The Supreme Court steps in on the Farm Bill
Under the Agriculture Adjustment Act, commodities such as cotton were plowed up and destroyed or left to rot in the fields. Pigs and chickens were slaughtered but not sent to market, destroyed instead. Though food prices did not reach the levels of their peak in 1929, the general public did feel the increase. By 1935 polls indicated that the majority of Americans disapproved of the AAA and the impact it had on the American consumer. The opposition reached the point of lawsuits, which eventually worked their way to the Supreme Court. In 1936, an election year, the Court ruled that the AAA was unconstitutional, and warranted an intrusion into the market which was, “beyond the powers delegated to the federal government”. The decision was one of several which led FDR to propose changes to the Supreme Court following his landslide re-election in November of that year.
Roosevelt and his aides crafted another measure to replace the AAA and although that one too was challenged in the courts, eventually it was upheld by the Supreme Court and ever since the federal government has used various methods to anticipate farm production and its impact on the national economy. The increase in food prices which greatly aided the rural poor had a negative impact on the urban poor, and led to the creation of the Food Stamp Plan in 1939. The plan was suspended in 1943 when the American economy was essentially at full employment and much food was subject to rationing, but in 1961 it was restored. It remained largely unchallenged, benefiting nearly all involved in the production, sale, and consumption of food until the twenty-first century.