• 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