Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/twih-f22.shtml#top

Abandoned farmAn overflow crowd of about 20,000 family farmers filled the Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa on February 27, 1985. They were protesting credit conditions that had led to ruin for hundreds of thousands of small farms in the preceding years and impoverished rural communities across the US Midwest. Farmers were devastated by the high interest rates put in effect by Paul Volcker, President Carter’s selection to head the Federal Reserve Board. Volcker raised the federal funds rate to as high as 20 percent in 1981. As interest rates skyrocketed, farm debt compounded, doubling to $215 billion between 1978 and 1984.