During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) sponsored a program to purchase under-performing farmland from poor farmers and resettle them in group farms to enhance cultivation. Despite criticism from some who considered the program to be socialist collectivism, the federal government did establish some of these farms in Colorado. Here in our state they partnered with the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station to administer the program. The annual income & expense reports for the program have been digitized and are available from our library for 1937 (the first report), 1938, and 1939. The coming of World War II eased some of the economic burdens on agriculture, and the program was abandoned by 1944. Check out these reports for an interesting look into a mostly-forgotten chapter in Colorado’s agricultural past.
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