Cooperation work of the U.S. Reclamation Bureau and Department of Agriculture in the early 20th century

Takuro Hidaka ()
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Takuro Hidaka: Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University

No 17-32-Rev., Discussion Papers in Economics and Business from Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics

Abstract: With the passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902, the federal government launched the Reclamation Projects, which include large-scale irrigation in the West. In order to promote agricultural development, the Reclamation Bureau and the Department of Agriculture worked together to grasp the situation of agriculture in the region and provided agricultural training to settlers. In this paper, we examine the development of this cooperative work, and the constraints that influenced the work. Farm land reclamation did not go well in the early period of the Projects. Previous researches have argued that one of the main reasons why it had difficulties is due to initial conditions at the time of passage of the Reclamation Act. The conditions can be summarized into the following two points. First, the cost was erroneously estimated very low, and an unbearable number of projects were developed. Second, the staff of the Reclamation Bureau, which was in charge of the project, lacked knowledge of agriculture, did not consider the climate and soil of the project area, and had optimistic assumptions on farmer's agricultural knowledge. However, the Reclamation Bureau worked with the USDA to manage experimental farms and provide agricultural advisors in an attempt to alleviate agricultural problems. It is necessary to consider the reasons for the limited impact of this effort. While our analysis confirms the effects of the initial conditions proposed by the previous studies, we also find factors different from the initial conditions. It is argued that the budget shortfall of the USDA played a pivotal role in the malfunction of the projects. Although the USDA wanted to increase the budget, the agricultural committee of the Congress, which was in charge of the budgeting of agriculture, was reluctant to disburse the amount the USDA claimed for their promotive work. The period up to the 1920s was a period of effort to maintain the budget that had already been earned.

Keywords: Water resource development; Irrigation; Bureau of Reclamation; Department of Agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N41 N42 N51 N52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2019-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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