The disaffected farmers were largely of a group that leveraged themselves in the belief that the good times in the wake of the Russian grain deal were going to last forever.  They learned the hard way that the lever can work both ways.  Another lesson learned was don't be the first one to go broke.  As the political unrest took hold there were some unbelievable deals made for some farmers in the way of debt relief.  Some of the most prosperous farms in my county today were bankrupt in 1980, and came out of that deal smelling like a rose.

One of the mantras that the NFO and AAM pushed was that the farmers were entitled to debt forgiveness because Sec. of Ag Earl Butz told them to plant 'fence row to fence row."  Butz did say that (and more, including an off color joke about 'what black people want' that cost him his job), but I'm convinced that not one farmer in America expanded production because of what Butz said.  The farmers expanded production because the prices for farm commodities doubled in the 1972-73 period, and in the case of wheat tripled.  This was during a period when costs of production was pennies per bushel.  The farmers didn't know what to do with all their money, and a lot of them were not very astute in dealing with financial matters.  I knew some farmers that ran million dollar operations and didn't know how to read a balance sheet, and some who took out several hundred thousand dollar loans and had never looked at the repayment schedule.  They seemed genuinely surprised when they discovered that the banks wanted to get paid back-with interest.