Under the administration of Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

, the Agriculture Marketing Act of 1929 established the Federal Farm Board

Federal Farm Board

The Federal Farm Board was actually created in 1929, before the stock market crash on Black Tuesday, 1929, but its powers were later enlarged to meet the economic crisis farmers faced during the Great Depression. It was established by the Agricultural Marketing Act to stabilize prices and to...

 with a revolving fund of half a billion dollars. The original act was sponsored by Hoover in an attempt to stop the downward spiral of crop prices by seeking to buy, sell and store agricultural surpluses or by generously lending money to farm organizations. The Act was not beneficial; the deflation ran deeper than could be cured by topical treatment. The funds appropriated were exhausted and the losses of the farmers kept rising.

The Act was the precursor to the Agricultural Adjustment Act

Agricultural Adjustment Act

The Agricultural Adjustment Act was a United States federal law of the New Deal era which restricted agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant part of their land and to kill off excess livestock...

.