Development of Agriculture's Human Resources: A Report on Problems of Low-Income Farmers

Excerpts from the Preface: This study has been focused on farm people—their needs, their goals and the obstacles they encounter. The principal cause of concentrations of farm people with low earnings has been found to be the inadequate agricultural resources in certain areas rather than any lack in the people themselves. Proposed solutions of the problem of low income might be based on ideas about the merits of rural as contrasted with urban life. Solutions might be strongly influenced by an opinion as to the size of farm deemed desirable from the standpoint of the national interest. Instead, the hopes of the people themselves have been taken as a guide. Proposed solutions are those which the people most concerned have chosen, as shown by their economic and social behavior. Recommendations are of such a nature as to speed the adjustments which have proved sound over a long period of years. This study, therefore, sets up no goals other than those voluntarily chosen by the people. The basic philosophy is that people will make wise decisions if they are informed regarding their various opportunities and if their capabilities are enhanced so as to increase the number of choices available to them. Insofar as individuals make wise decisions the national welfare will be advanced. Special attention has been focused on the young people in the belief that they stand to gain most from a program which will increase the number of opportunities, the awareness of them, and capacities to take advantage of them. The study emphasizes that the foundation for programs to increase opportunities available to low- income people is the interest and enterprise of local people and communities. But cooperative effort by local communities, private enterprises and the State and Federal Governments can make possible much more rapid improvements in levels of living of low-income families.