Small Agriculture: A National Agricultural Library Digital Exhibit

A History of the Emergency Farm Labor Supply Program, 1943-47

National Agricultural Library

victory gardens

The purpose of the wartime emergency farm-labor supply program was to assist farmers in producing vital food by making labor available at the time and place it -was most needed. Certain aspects of the program, particularly the provision of housing and medical care, were adapted from a farm labor program that had developed during the depression. As this development influenced considerably the evolution of the 1943-47 program, the first two chapters of this monograph are concerned with Departmental activities undertaken before Congress made the first direct appropriation for the 1943-47 program, and with the change from depression-born social welfare programs based on an oversupply of labor to the war program based on a demand for labor far exceeding the supply.

Rasmussen, Wayne D.

Bureau of Agricultural Economics. U.S. Department of Agriculture.

1951

Agriculture Monograph: Number 13