Soon after the United States entered the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed an issue that was of great concern to Pompano farmers:

We are learning to ration materials, and we must now learn to ration manpower . . . Every farmer in the land must realize fully that his production is part of war production, and that he is regarded by the nation as essential to victory.

The federal government set production goals for various crops, in many cases favoring those that required the least labor in relation to nutritional value.