The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, also called "AAA" (1933-1942), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies.Agricultural Adjustment Act, , , enacted May 12, 1933.Hurt, R. Douglas, Problems of Plenty: The American Farmer in the Twentieth Century, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002), 69. The Agriculture Marketing Act, which established the Federal Farm Board in 1929, was seen as an important precursor to this act.Harris Gaylord Warren, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 175. The AAA, along with other New Deal programs, represented the federal government's first substantial effort to address economic welfare in the United States.Gates, Staci L. 2006. "Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933." Federalism in American: An Encyclopedia.
