Bread Not Bullets: Mobilizing American Farmers for the Postwar World

This chapter examines the relationship between farm policy and foreign policy in the middle of the twentieth century. Seeking to advance American interests abroad during and immediately after World War II, U.S. policymakers tapped into the nation’s food power. Agriculture officials praised farmers as exemplars of Jefferson’s agrarian ideal and encouraged record-breaking production during the war. Food was deemed equally vital to the peace, but skeptical farmers feared a repeat of the boom-bust cycle that had accompanied World War I. The Department of Agriculture worked alongside other government agencies to champion overproduction and celebrate American abundance. This commodities surplus provided the State Department with a valuable political and economic tool to wield overseas, yet did little to ease the burden of modern agriculture within the United States.