United States. Farm Security Administration

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was established within the United States Department of Agriculture to implement the provisions of the Bankhead-Jones Tenant Act of 1937. The agency also took over certain functions of its predecessor, the Resettlement Administration (RA). The FSA made available and administered long-term loans to tenants and sharecroppers, loaned funds to rural cooperatives, and operated camps for migrant farm workers. The FSA was abolished in 1946; the Farmers Home Administration (FHA) continued its work. The Resettlement Administration, an independent agency, was created by executive order on April 30, 1935. Among its many duties, the RA directed rural rehabilitation, resettlement projects, and the operation of migrant farm worker camps. The RA had been given responsibility for relief programs previously administered by the Emergency Relief Administration and the Department of the Interior's Subsistence Homestead Division. Local aid to farm tenants under the RA consisted of relocation, loans, and experimental community farming. The FSA's activities in Montana consisted of resettlement and irrigation projects intended to aid farming and ranching, or to increase the production of existing farms and ranches in areas where the rural economy was in crisis. Many of these projects were undertaken through the provisions of the Wheeler-Case Act of 1940, whereby the secretary of agriculture was given the responsibility for land acquisition, development, and settlement of irrigation projects. However, it was the responsibility of the secretary of the interior to transmit any recommendations for the construction of projects under the Act. the FSA also administered projects under the wartime Food for Victory program. The FSA accomplished its projects with the help of other federal and state agencies, including the Departmet of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service and Bureau of Agricultural Economics; the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation; the Public Works Administration; and the Montana State Water Conservation Board.

From the guide to the U.S. Farm Security Administration Records, 1928-1956, (Montana Historical Society Archives)

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