ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with those producers embroiled in what at least one author, in reference to underdeveloped nations, has called "the debt trap". It discusses credit as a social relation of production. Agricultural credit is then placed in a historical context, with a brief description of its role in US agriculture prior to the post-World War II period. The empirical analysis of debt as a social relation involves analysis of the direct producers' "partners" in that relationship, that is, the creditors. The farmers of the Populist movement clearly identified the creditors as one of their foremost antagonists. The direct producer can acquire capital for farming in a number of ways: savings, gifts and inheritance, outside equity capital. Since the lending capacity of private commercial banks is restricted by their reserves and capital, an important distinction develops between small rural banks and large urban banks.
