Franklin Roosevelt in a campaign speech at Topeka, Kansas in September 1932 enunciated the following six points for a program for agricultural adjustment.
"1. The plan must provide for the producer of staple commodities, such as wheat, cotton, corn (in the form of hogs), and tobacco, a tariff benefit over world prices which is equivalent to the benefit given by the tariff to industrial products. this differential benefit must be so applied that the increase in farm income, purchasing and debt-paying power will not stimulate further production.
2. The plan must finance itself. Agriculture at no time sought and does not now seek such access to the public treasury as was provided by the futile and costly attempts at price stabilization by the Federal Farm Board. It seeks only equality of opportunity with tariff protected industry.
3. It must not make use of any mechanism which would cause our European customers to retaliate on the grounds of dumping. It must be based upon making the tariff effective and direct in its operation.
4. It must make use of existing agencies and so far as possible be decentralized in its administration so that the chief responsibility for its operation will rest with the locality rather than with newly created bureaucratic machinery in Washington.
5. It must operate as nearly as possible on a co-operative basis and its effect must be to enhance and strengthen the co-operative movement. It should moreover, be constituted so that it can be withdrawn whenever the emergency has passed, and normal foreign markets have been re-established.
6. The plan must be, in so far as possible, voluntary. I like the idea that the plan should not be put into operation unless it has the support of a reasonable proportion of the producers of the exportable commodity, on which it is to apply. It must be so organized that the benefits will go to the man who participates."
In December of 1932, the Federal Farm Board, in its report to Congress, went on record supporting certain principles of a farm program.
"One of the present needs is not to stabilize the variations in farm prices but to raise their general level up to the average level of other commodities. In light of experience ... the Board recommends that any new legislation be based on the following principles,...
(1) Prices cannot be raised unless some one pays the cost. The new plan must be self-sustaining, with a continuous method of covering the cost.
(2) Prices cannot be kept at fair levels unless production is adjusted to meet market demands. ... Any method which provided higher prices and did not include effective regulation of acreage or quantities sold, or both would tend to increase the present surpluses and soon break down as a result."
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