Food Environment and Reporting Network

DECEMBER 20, 2024

The soybeans and corn are processed into animal feed and ethanol, mostly outside the region; the cotton is exported to textile mills in Asia. Over the next two decades, tractors, mechanical harvesters, and chemical herbicides made sharecropping obsoleteyou no longer needed much labor to farm cotton or grains. Grocery stores are scarce.

Acre 89

Acre Farming Farming Crop 89

Civil Eats

DECEMBER 10, 2024

Photo credit: Cornell Watson) Ideally, wed get this sweet corn in the ground today, he says, indicating a bag of organic seed and a nearby half-acre plot of loose brown soil. When the owner of the land where Byron was sharecropping died, he willed Byron at least 10 acres. It really is modern-day sharecropping.

Plantation 144

Plantation Farming Farming Acre 144

Food Environment and Reporting Network

DECEMBER 31, 2024

Seed funds came from wealthy friends and friends of friends, some of whom told me they hadn’t fully appreciated what they were supporting. A million palm seeds were soon imported from Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ivory Coast. “Oh, f**k,” he remembered thinking. Now, those forests were being cleared.

Plantation 120

Plantation Acre Cultivation Crop 120