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AGRICULTURE (Overproduction (Increased foreign competition as overseas…
AGRICULTURE
Overproduction
Increased foreign competition as overseas shipping got better, so farmers tried to produce/sell more goods, saturating market supply even more
Individual farms got much more specialized as they industrialized, meaning more demand of single crops
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More production using specialized equipment meant more land and machinery needs, leading farmers to take on more debt, while still getting less income from crops
New mechanized farm equipment, like this tractor 
More demand for storage meant grain elevators could charge higher fees
Economic Struggles
Gold vs. Silver Standard for the Dollar
Economic deflation from gold standard meant that the value of money was rising. So farmers had to pay back more to the banks than they took out in loans - good for banks, bad for debtors
Gold is much rarer than silver, so farmers wanted dollars based on silver to allow for inflation as debts rose to be unmanageable
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Rising Debts
The rise of sharecropping and tenant farming meant that many farmers (especially in the South) no longer owned all of their resources, and lost a lot of money from crops that they had to give to other parties
Equipment manufacturers weren't impacted by tariffs, as they didn't sell as much overseas, and they didn't face the increased competition the tariffs were supposed to control
Industrialization and increased production needs meant that farmers had to buy lots of new equipment from suppliers who weren't facing the same struggles as them. More machines = more debt
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Agrarian Response
Populist movement (The People's Party) grew out of unpopularity of Republican-controlled government
The Grange
Actually called the Patrons of Husbandry
Meant to be a co-op program, buying and selling collectively from members to command more bargaining power and better revenue from those involved
Efforts to cut out middlemen, setting up Grange-run stores to sell goods at prices they could set, but these stores didn't get much funding and couldn't always afford to sell bulk goods on credit, which many of the resellers could do
Grangers ended up failing because many farmers had too many debts and couldn't afford to wait for everyone's crops to come in, and had to sell to local buyers or credit merchants
Some landowners wouldn't lease to Grangers or just refused to buy any of the goods at all, instead of paying collective prices
The Farmer's Alliance
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More political in its purpose, loudly pushing for government changes to help farmers
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Several Alliances, including one in Texas and also Colored Farmers' National Alliance
"Subtreasury Program" would subsidize storage of crops until after surplus, when price went back down to more reasonable prices
Farmers felt that the laborers were unfairly carrying the burden, while wealthy industrialists were profiting off them
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