Quote:
Originally Posted by wdfifteen
The government made sure it was profitable. A certain amount of tobacco from each farmer got price support from the government. That was the allotment or base amount you would grow, pretty much a guaranteed profit. Any amount you grew beyond that was sold on the open market for whatever you could get.
My grandfather had an allotment that he leased out to another farmer. He basically rented out the right to receive a government subsidy.
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Back when the government got into price supports for farmers, the government figured lots of farmers would accept the money to NOT grow a crop, then turn around and grow it anyway for open market. There was so much cheating that the USGS started doing aerial photography in the 1930s of the entire US, cities, town and counties found the aerials useful for other purposes. Since then the USGS flies the entire state when the states kick in some money.
The last few years back to 2003 are available, on line for free if you own mapping software needed to open the special format files (Mr. Sid files). The older stuff back to WW2 era is available from USGS if you pay for a scan.
The really old stuff is only at the national archives. It is a real pain to get those, as we have to hire an archivist that has the license to go into the archives, and scan the negative and they all have low end off the shelf flat bed scanners, not the 70 grand and up photogrammetric scanners that are needed for a good scan.
With the section, township and range of a farm I can make you an image of the farm from 2003 pretty cheap. The older ones get more expensive as we have to pay for the scans, but I can likely get a 1950s image of any farm for under $80.
All because so many farmers were willing to cheat on free government money.