# Land Utilization Program

Land Utilization Program (LUP) was founded in 1934 and was one of many Alphabet agencies, also called New Deal agencies. Land Utilization Program was an U.S. federal government agency created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Land Utilization Program was created to combat the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression in the United States. Land Utilization Program was ended in 1964.

## History

Some of the cause of the dust bowl was caused by concentrated agriculture, some called sodbusters, farmers that plowed up native grasses grow wheat and other crops. The some of the grassland were used livestock before the sodbusters. Most sodbusters activity was between 1905 and 1915. By the 1920s rainfall had dropped off and crops failed. The grassland soil with no grass roots turned to dust and formed the black blizzards of the Great Plains for about 10 years. In 1929, Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 had the Federal Farm Board study the problem and make a report. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover's United States Secretary of Agriculture, Arthur M. Hyde, formed a National Conference on Land Utilization in 1931 held in Chicago, to study the Dust Bowl problems and to make recommendations. In 1933, Hoover asked Congress to act on Hyde's Conference recommendations. A National Planning Board was founded in the Public Works Administration on in July 1933. This Board became the National Resources Board by an executive orders of Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 30, 1934.
In 1933, a Special Board of Public Works made of members from several Federal departments recommend a program for purchasing poor soil farmland. In February 1934, Agricultural Adjustment Administration started the program. In 1934, one of the recommendations was acted on, for the Federal Government to purchase and develop 75 million acres of land not good for farming. Starting in 1934, the U.S. federal government acquired 11 million acres of Great Plains land from voluntary private owners for $47.5 million. The land was turned into federally managed large grass grazing land. The Land Utilization Program managed these new grasslands. The Land Utilization Program seeded and managed the grassland for 10 years. Some of the land was used for pasture, forest, livestock range, parks, recreation land, and wildlife refuge. In total there were about 250 land utilization projects in 45 States. Some of the land was purchase with the Bankhead–Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937, National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. Resettlement Administration was established by Executive Order, April 1935. The land utilization program was transferred to the Resettlement Administration, with an initial allotment of $48 million for land purchase and $18 million to employ labor for development, April 1935. In September 1937, the Land utilization program was move to be under the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. In October 1938, the Land Utilization Program was put under the Soil Conservation Service. In January 1954, Land Utilization Program was put under United States Forest Service. In December 1964, the Land Utilization Program was ended.

## Gallery

* Slash Pines in Dixon Memorial State Forest planted in 1935, under the Land Utilization Program
* Trees in the Laura S. Walker State Park planted in 1937, under the Land Utilization Program
* Little Missouri National Grassland form from failed farms and ranches under the Land Utilization Program
* Thunder Basin National Grassland form from failed farms and ranches under the Land Utilization Program
* A Colorado Land Utilization Program Headquarters in Briggsdale, Colorado. Now a National Register of Historic Places listings in Weld County, Colorado
* Dust Bowl in Dallas, South Dakota in 1936 with buried farm machinery