The Farmers Holiday Association, active from 1932 to 1937, served as the nominal organization behind a protest movement by mostly midwestern and Great Plains farmers in reaction to more than ten years of depressed farm income. During World War I farmers met increased worldwide demand for food by increasing their farm sizes and mechanizing their operations. Both strategies proved to be problematic following the post-World War I crash of the farm economy that occurred when foreign markets contracted and wartime price controls ended. After a decade of neglect by the major political parties, many farmers looked to protest movements and third parties as the Great Depression compounded their economic difficulties.
The Farmers Holiday Association grew out of the National Farmers Union, an organization that lobbied for farm aid and tariff reform, as well as operating purchasing and sales cooperatives. The name referred to the famous "Bank Holiday," farmers noting that if bankers could take a holiday to reorder their business, they should be allowed to do the same. The National Farmers Union and the Farmers Holiday Association remained closely linked, in part because the primary leader of the Farmers Holiday Association, Milo Reno, had also been the head of the Iowa Farmers Union. Milo Reno remained central to the organization well past its peak in 1933, and the Iowa chapter was the strongest and most active branch of the organization. Although the organization was national, it received greatest support in the Upper Midwest and Northern Great Plains: Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and North Dakota drew the largest number of followers. Each state chapter acted independently. In Nebraska, the Communist Party attempted to gain some degree of control, but despite considerable activity and media exposure, it had only limited influence.
Most members owned property or had recently become tenants. Association members never constituted a majority of farmers in any region, which weakened their position and virtually guaranteed conflict with their neighbors. The core concept of the movement, cost of production, centered on the belief that farmers must make a profit on their commodities. In an era when many commodities sold for less than they cost to produce, this idea had obvious appeal. Under the system proposed by the Farmers Holiday Association, farmers would be allowed to grow all they wanted, and the federal government would mandate a price high enough to cover the costs of mortgage, seed, equipment, and labor plus guarantee a profit on commodities intended for the domestic market. The government would then sell the surplus on world markets at true market value. Similar ideas, embodied in the McNary-Haugen Bill, failed to win enough support to override President Calvin Coolidge's vetoes in the 1920s. Other positions advocated by the organization included tariff reform and currency inflation.
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