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Influence of
the railroads With land to sell,
the Northern Pacific Railroad made a determined effort to attract settlers.
It sent representatives abroad to organize colonies of emigrants and
distributed literature on Dakota. Dakota Territory established a bureau
of immigration that also distributed literature. Bank of North
Dakota The state-owned
Bank of North Dakota was established in 1919. Farm loan program was
established with the sale of bonds offering loans for longer terms under
lower interest and more flexible repayment plans than those extended
by private lenders. Tax levies were necessary from the beginning to
cover service costs on the outstanding bonds, and the Bank of North
Dakota program was forced into liquidation in 1934. North Dakota
Mill and Elevator North Dakota Mill
and Elevator began operating in 1922 as a value-added market for wheat
produced in North Dakota. It is the only state-owned milling facility
in the United States. With five milling units, the Mill now produces
and ships 22,000 cwt. of milled product daily. In addition, the Mill
ships over 7,000 cwt. of food grade bran and wheat midds daily. Price supports Government programs
first encouraged farmers and ranchers to produce more. After surpluses
began accumulating in the 1940's, the programs were designed to provide
a safety net for farmers. The insurance provided by price supports allowed
them to stop diversifying. The more they specialized, the more productive
they became and the more they expanded their operations. Fence-row
to Fence-row After worldwide
crop failures, 1973 and 1974 offered a great market. The US Secretary
of Agriculture was encouraging farmers to plant "fence-row to fence-row"
and to "get bigger, get better, or get out." Farms and farmer's
incomes were growing, but so was farm debt as the industry moved toward
bigger and better machinery to work the increased acreage. In 1980, a grain
embargo on the Soviet Union decreased US ag exports. The bottom fell
out of agricultural prices and land values. By 1982, net farm income,
when adjusted for inflation, was lower than during the Great Depression. USDA Secretary John
Block implemented a payment-in-kind (PIK) program in 1983. PIK resulted
in the third-largest acreage reduction ever. By 1989, 30 million
acres were retired under the Conservation Reserve Program of the 1985
Food Security Act. The Extension
Service The first organizations
to help farmers were set up as private groups. The Farmers' Cooperative
Demonstration Group in Texas was established with private money in 1904
to help farmers with boll weevil infestation. USDA got involved to helped
fight the weevil but also showed farmers how to diversify their crops.
They demonstrated how rotation could stabilize their income and decrease
weevil infestation. By 1911 about 600 agents were hired and boys' clubs
were started. The Smith-Lever
Extension Act established the Cooperative Extension Service to distribute
agricultural information. The experiment stations were the main source
of information for the extension service. Many individuals did not see
the need for such activity, but opposition died when World War I started
and the demand for food increased.Experiment Stations In 1949 The New
York Agricultural Society set up a chemical lab to analyze crops and
soils. The Maryland Agricultural College later set up the first experimental
fields. In 1975 a Connecticut university established the first "regular
experiment station." One of the station's main tasks was to analyze
commercial fertilizer. |