Farmers' Association?
Nell nodded. There were indeed many farmers' associations in America. However, most farmers and agricultural associations were merely spokespeople for agricultural monopolies, with little connection to protecting the rights of farmers.
Moreover, the main business of these agricultural associations today was not to guide agricultural production or breed quality seeds; those tasks were handled by agricultural research institutions. Their main business was actually to extract money from farmers, trying all possible ways to do so.
For example, they were involved in the agricultural insurance industry, collecting insurance premiums from farmers, and then paying out in the event of natural disasters. But insurance was a tricky business, and in later years, some major countries' insurance companies were all nothing but scams, offering no value at all. The current American insurance industry was quite similar to those in some later responsible countries.
They set various thresholds and conditions, and had many exclusions. Even if they collected premiums from farmers, when disaster struck, it was extremely difficult for them to actually pay out. Even when claims were eligible, the process took so long that by the time it was complete, the farmers' families would be close to starving.
Another issue was providing loans to farmers. Everyone knew that a single farmer had almost no ability to resist risks and lacked cash in hand. Therefore, in most cases, many farmers were forced to borrow money to continue their production, especially those who grew cash crops like tobacco, corn, and cotton. These farmers had to take loans year after year.
Farm equipment, fertilizers, pesticides, seeds—all of these required money, and they still needed to spend money for their own living. Moreover, economic crops were highly susceptible to market fluctuations, with prices constantly changing.
These types of farmers were the most favored by the farmers' associations. They needed loans and, in a normal year, had the ability to repay. However, once they accumulated more debt, they gradually became subservient to the farmers' association, practically becoming its dogs, following orders without any will of their own.
The best example of this was Japan's agricultural cooperatives. No political party in Japan had more power than the agricultural cooperatives. A candidate endorsed by the cooperatives was 100% certain to win, whereas a candidate endorsed by Abe could easily lose. This was because the farmers in the districts had already become slaves to the cooperatives, deeply attached to them. Once the cooperatives gave an order, the farmers had no choice but to vote.
Other things like monopolizing farm machinery or seeds were minor issues. They couldn't compare to the fast money made by lending money to farmers or collecting insurance premiums.
"Who's the one promoting this?" Nell also put down his spoon. Even if he didn't care about other people, at least he had to manage his own family and the neighboring Irish relatives, right?
He didn't understand the messy stuff behind it all, but now he knew these were all terrible, shady schemes, and he couldn't just watch people jumping into the fire.
"I don't know him. They say he's from New York." Patrick, being the head of the household, had looked into the matter a bit.
"What's their specific pitch? Is it about setting up agricultural cooperatives or joining an agricultural association?"
"They were speaking in circles. I didn't quite understand. But the person's still in the neighboring town. Everyone's watching for now; no one's talking about joining."
Patrick probably wanted to repeat the agricultural capitalists' rhetoric but couldn't do it well, since he barely finished sixth grade and didn't have the memory or linguistic skills for it. He gave up, honestly admitting that he didn't understand.
"Alright, I got it. I'll go meet them tomorrow." Nell himself wasn't busy at the moment.
Although it was the start of the school year, Nell wasn't in a rush to go to college. He used to want to save money to go to college, but now that he had money, he had more choices. Besides, Dewey's recommendation letter wouldn't expire, and Nell was even considering looking at a few old, prestigious universities in the East before deciding.
That being said, farmers in Brook County and the nearby areas likely weren't eager to join these associations. After all, the Irish and German immigrants in the area primarily engaged in farming as a supplement to the coal mining industry.
Men worked in the mines, while their wives and children farmed a few acres and raised some livestock. These farm households weren't purely agricultural but were more about solving basic food problems and keeping the women and children busy.
In better economic times, a strong male worker would earn about thirty dollars in cash a month, and the crops they grew would feed the family and sometimes trade for other goods. The wages were mainly for living expenses, buying clothes, farming tools, and sending kids to primary school.
This situation kept these immigrant families relatively stable. Unless something happened to the male worker—like a mining accident—causing the loss of the cash income, they would usually manage to avoid hardship.
However, after decades of "friendly negotiations" between the coal miners' union and the mine owners, even if a man died in a mining accident, his family would still receive compensation equivalent to three to five years' wages. So even if the man died, the household wouldn't collapse into poverty and begging.
Such small, self-sustained farming households had strong survival abilities and a certain resilience to risks. They were much like Nell's family—Patrick was indifferent to those agricultural associations. First, because his family could get by, and second, because ordinary people had a deep distrust of government agencies and social organizations.
The origin of this distrust would take a long time to explain. If one wanted to talk about it, it would take millions of words. It all started after the Civil War, when farmers in both the North and the South were deeply resistant to government officials.
The Civil War led to the issuance of over four hundred million dollars' worth of unsecured, internationally unrecognized U.S. currency, and the government intended to place the burden on workers and farmers. This led to decades of farmers and workers leading the "Greenback Movement" to resist the exploitation of the federal government and capitalists.
Then, after World War I, Europe's gold flowed into the U.S., creating a distorted prosperity. The U.S. government began implementing a deflation policy, causing the price of agricultural products to plummet, and farmers' cash income collapsed.
Thus, in the past few decades, American farmers had basically seen the government and elites as enemies and developed an extreme hatred.