ABSTRACT
History shows that agricultural policy is not a new innovation and neither is the protection of special interests and politics. Agricultural policy from 1787 until the US Civil War largely concerned land settlement issues, farm credit problems, tariffs, and slavery. Sharecropping tenancy is also sometimes cited as meeting the needs of landless laborers and cash-poor planters following the Civil War. Others list it as a kind of economic slavery. The Hatch Act of 1887 was passed to provide funding for agricultural research by the Land Grant Universities. Corruption in government and corruption by those who would use the political system for their own ends, abuses of farmers, and financial crises led to the rise of farmer organizations. By the end of the nineteenth century, the nation had established an agricultural economy and supporting infrastructure that provided the basis for twentieth-century agricultural policy.
