• MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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      4 months ago

      It boggles my mind how little people are aware of this kind of practice. The Who even wrote a “joke” song about it in the 70s:

      https://youtu.be/_VkVn0A7E6o

      Well, I farmed for a year and grew a crop of corn 
      That stretched as far as the eye can see 
      That’s a whole lot of cornflakes 
      Near enough to feed New York till 1973

      Cultivation is my station and the nation 
      Buys my corn from me immediately 
      And holding sixty thousand bucks, I watch as dumper trucks 
      Tip New York’s corn flakes in the sea

      ~~

      Well, my pick and spade are rusty
      Because I’m paid on trust 
      To leave my square of cornfield bare

    • randon31415@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Probably to keep from ripping up the top soil during the harvest. Kind of counterintuitive to use less farmland and to produce less when the price is high, but same thing works with oil fields - you get more the slower you pump.

        • randon31415@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Oh, I thought you were talking about not harvesting the corn once it was ready.

          federal government literally paid farmers to not harvest crops

          If it was already harvested and then left to rot, that was market manipulation of some sort. Maybe Grangers and breaking the rail monopolies? Though I think they did the whole “left harvested food to rot” bit in the late 1800s, not early 1900s