Civil Eats

DECEMBER 10, 2024

Isaiah White harvests kale at his familys fifth-generation farm in Warren County, where the U.S. When the owner of the land where Byron was sharecropping died, he willed Byron at least 10 acres. Patrick Browns nephew Justice White pauses while harvesting organic purple kale. Across the road, peacocks shriek. They must be pets?

Plantation 139

Plantation Farming Farming Acre 139

Food Environment and Reporting Network

DECEMBER 20, 2024

In 1944, International Harvester tested the first mechanical cotton picker on a plantation just south of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Over the next two decades, tractors, mechanical harvesters, and chemical herbicides made sharecropping obsoleteyou no longer needed much labor to farm cotton or grains.

Acre 90

Acre Farming Farming Crop 90

Food Environment and Reporting Network

DECEMBER 31, 2024

The company has replaced its trucks and tractors with mules and water buffalo and has vowed not to expand its operations into standing forest. It wasn’t much, but they had only to cross the river to hunt wild game, gather native fruits, and harvest natural dyes for pottery and textiles they sold in local markets.

Plantation 115

Plantation Acre Cultivation Crop 115