The Women’s Land Army
Miss Nancy Tyree, Assistant State Supervisor of the Women’s
Land Army for the Virginia Extension Service dashed into our office in Richmond
the other day in desperation. “I’ve just visited 16 colleges in Virginia,
contacted scores of groups of city women, and spoken before numerous women’s
clubs,” she said, “and city women are definitely interest in helping out in the
acute labor shortage on farms this summer. They want to work and are willing to
learn. ‘The need is so great and the appreciation of farm people so genuine’
are the reasons most often given for their desire to sacrifice jobs at higher
pay and shorter hours in town to help with the food harvest. But here’s my
problem,” Miss Tyree continued. “We have the women, plenty of them, but the
requests by farmers for workers from the Women’s Land Army are so slow coming
in that I’m worried about work for all the women. Can’t you help me locate
these patriotic, willing women workers on Virginia farms where the need is
greatest?”
Every state has a Woman’s Land Army this year. In the North
and the East, there this type of labor was used in agriculture last year,
farmers were more than pleased! Applications are pouring in for women workers
in the Valley of Virginia, where city women and girls spent their vacations
last summer picking apples, tomatoes, and helping generally on farms. The work
of Maryland women on farms last season attracted Nation-wide attention. But
farther South our farmers, though desperately in need of farm labor, have
over-looked what may be the answer to the farm labor problem—the Women’s Land
Army. There are in the United States today 5,000,000 unemployed childless
women, many of whom are willing to work on farms.
Three kinds of women farm workers are available: Drive-Ins
who drive out in groups each morning to farms and go back to town for the
night; Live-Ins, who live in the farm home like members of the farm family; and
Camp Workers. There the demand is great enough to justify the expense of
establishing a farm labor camp in a community, the women live together in camp
and work on farms in the neighborhood. Such a camp is already in operation in
Timberville, Virginia.
Miss Tyree’s predicament is typical of the Women’s Land Army
leaders in all of the states. They can get the help if you want it. And if you
do want it, won’t you notify your county agricultural agent or home
demonstration agent immediately so that recruitments may be made now for the
summer?
Little Farmers Make
Big Yields
Once again the small, low-income farmers, receiving credit
from the battle-scarred Farm Security Administration, have demonstrated their
food producing power. For the second consecutive year FSA borrowers have
increase production of food at a faster rate than the national average. The
following figures just released by the U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics
show production increases for essential commodities for 1942 and 1943:
|
Percentage
Increase
|
|
Product
|
1941
to 1942
|
1942
to 1943
|
Pork
|
36
|
56
|
Beef
|
38
|
43
|
Milk
|
20
|
18
|
Chickens
|
36
|
47
|
Eggs
|
31
|
32
|
Soybeans
|
160
|
37
|
Peanuts
|
88
|
22
|
Dry Beans
|
6
|
15
|
According to the 1940 Census 47.5 percent of all farm
families in the United States produced less than $600 worth of farm products in
a year, including the value of that used in the farm household. This amount was
barely enough to feed and clothe the family. Certainly there was little left,
after family needs were supplied, for the Army, our Allies and defense workers.
Nearly a million and a half of these low-income farms are so situated that
adequate farm management and credit would enable them to step-up production
sharply. It is with this group of farmers that the Farm Security Administration
has been working—extending credit, developing farm management plans and
suggesting cropping systems. That FSA clients are pointing the way in producing
food to win the war, the above figures leave no doubt.
Farm Organizations
Weak in the South
Always a matter of grave concern to us is the lack of
membership of Southern farmers in national farm organizations. In these days of
pressure groups, agricultural policy is largely determined by farm
organizations. Every piece of important agricultural legislation in Washington
is whipped into final shape after receiving the criticisms and suggestions of
the National Grange, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Farmers’
Union. Leaders of these three national farm organizations have done a
magnificent job for agriculture in Washington.
But it is distressing to learn that the Farmers’ Union has
virtually no membership in the South, the Grange has only 1.8 percent of its
members in the 13 Southern States and the Farm Bureau, 30 percent of its
membership in Dixie. Yet half the farm people in the United States live south
of the Mason-Dixon line. How in the name of common sense can Southern farm
people hope to make their interests felt in the legislative halls of the State
and Nation unless they have strong, well-supported farm organizations? That’s
the $64 question that only Southern farmers themselves can answer.
No comments:
Post a Comment