There was a newspiece a while back about new farmers producing tobacco (i.e, in southern Illinois) under contract with companies. I blogged on it here. And the dairy farms are going out, or hiring immigrant labor to work the 15 hour days. (Actually, that's a lie--dairy farmers just want your sympathy. They don't actually work 15 hours every day. Their workday ends 15 hours or so after it begins, but there's down time and meal time in between. Another reminder: don't trust anyone.)
And now the peanut farms are moving, from Whitesboro (NE Texas on the OKlahoma border) to west Texas, according to this lament.It seems to be a pattern similar to that for tobacco--the old FSA quota program effectively locked in the farms that were growing the crop. End the program, or replace it with a nonquota program, and different farmers in different areas will grow the crop. In the lingo of the economists, it's "creative destruction". In the memories of the people, it's a lost heritage.
A sidenote: both the peanut piece and the dairy post previous refer to horses coming in. I guess all the rich yuppies with their ranchettes also want their own saddle horse? Trying to recapture the heritage of the cowboys (or the Plains Indians)?
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