Beltrami Island Farms (Minnesota)

Excerpts from the report: With the decline of agricultural prices after the World War, it became evident that many people had established themselves on land unfit for successful farming. After the economic crisis of 1929-30, the pressure of population on the land increased and the distress of those in the poorer areas grew steadily worse. In 1934 the Federal Government began a small program of helping farm families to move out of submarginal areas and get a new start on better land elsewhere. In northern Minnesota, two cut-over forest areas were chosen for an experiment in this sort of relocation. Here the need for some such action was unusually pressing. Better land was available nearby, and relocation would involve a minimum of expense and social readjustment. One of the two areas was the Beltrami Island region, covering about 742,000 acres, of which approximately 7 percent lay in Roseau County, 50 percent in Lake of the Woods County, and 43 percent in Beltrami County. The other was on Pine Island in adjoining Koochiching County, containing 614,000 acres. Both areas together extended over an area of one and a half million acres, in which a scattered population of 430 settlers were living. It was planned to move these farmers out of the submarginal cut-over areas and give them a new start on better land, where they would be able to get all available government services at a considerable saving to the local taxpayers. The submarginal land was to be taken out of cultivation and put to better uses. The northern Minnesota relocation program covering these two areas soon became popularly known as the "Beltrami Island Project." The 214 farm units comprising Beltrami Island Farms contain 23,127 acres of land located largely in four counties: Beltrami, Lake of the Woods, Roseau, and Koochiching. Although the borrowers are not required to accept technical aid and advice, most of them have been glad to get "supervision" from the Government staff in matters such as land purchase, planning of development, planning of buildings, and farm management.