THE FEDERAL COTTON PROGRAMS AND FARM LABOR FORCE ADJUSTMENTS.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effects that the acreage aspects of the cotton programs have had upon movements of farm labor in the majority of the chief cotton-growing states of the South. A study along these lines is justified and needed on several counts. First, migration is an important avenue of labor-force adjustment in agriculture, perhaps more so than in most industries since occupation and place of residence are so closely related. Second, cotton acreage controls have constituted an 4 In addition to those already cited, see Walter Wilcox, "The Farm Policy Dilemma," Journal of Farm Economics, August 1958, pp. 563-571; and E. L. Baum and Earl O. Heady, "Some Effects of Selected Policy Programs on Agricultural Labor Mobility in the South," Southern Economic Journal, January 1959, pp. 327-337. important part of the federal farm programs since 1933 and are likely to continue to be important. Finally, cotton is one of the most labor intensive of all crops. The effects of these programs with respect to labor-force adjustment through migration need to be more clearly understood.[5]
The paper may be concluded rather briefly with the observation that the results of this analysis have not been consistent with the usual claim that the farm programs over the last three decades or so have tended to hamper movements of labor from farming. They have on the contrary tended to bear out the hypothesis that the net effect of the acreage aspects of the programs has been to speed up movement from farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]