FARM ECONOMY
Before today, I believed the prosperity my family has lost had been known to all in America. Now I know I was wrong. There was a whole region of people who never reaped the benefits of the economic boom of the 1920s. At the end of World War I, people like my family and I enjoyed so much while farmers in the west, suffered in poverty. During the war, farmers were forced to produce copious amounts of food to supply men in the military and those at home. After the war, farmers fell victim to overproduction. Maybe the government didn't tell them to stop producing crops or maybe they believed that the prosperity they achieved from the war would continue just as we believed it would for the economic boom. I guess its true. History does repeat itself. I wonder what the farmers have to deal with now. Are they worse off or are we all in the same boat now?
- Mary Anne Smith

With a surplus of crops and no one to buy them, farmers were forced to lower their prices to attempt to increase demand. Demand did not increase, but debt did. As prices dropped, income lowered with it. With lower income meant higher debt because its hard to pay back loans or credit debt that's built up when the paycheck is small.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2473/3885622226_b7c8d73459.jpg
A farmer of the 1920s.