UPFRONT

Cotton’s history in pictures

Cotton: From Southern Fields to the Memphis Market

William Bearden

Arcadia Publishing, 128 pages/soft cover, $19.95, ISBN 0-7385-1762-3

The success for Mississippi native and historian William Bearden in this little book is the rounding up of historic photos. The book has more than 200 vintage images that explore the southern cotton tradition. In fact, the book isn’t much more than a photo album with interesting captions.

Bearden puts the historian’s touch on the subject with a chronological photographic account that follows cotton from colonial slave trade to fields with modern modular harvesting. For Today’s Farmer readers, it’s the photos of old growing techniques and plenty of background on Memphis as a market town that make the book worth thumbing through. Along the way, there is good evidence of how the cotton and textile industry has reflected the social inequities of eras gone by, including rare photos of child labor in textile mills and, according to the publisher, some of the earliest known photos of African-American slaves. But Bearden’s goal isn’t to besmirch the industry. Rather, it’s to show that a single commodity can shape the world. Bearden sees cotton’s ubiquity in the delta as the reason anything exists there at all.

Wither the 2 percent climb?

While agricultural productivity has bounced up and down from year to year, typically driven by weather, it has generally trended upward over time. But productivity growth appears to have slowed since the mid-1990s. Does this reflect a change in trend? Productivity growth can arise from improvements in efficiency and technology as well as changes in the scale of production. A key source of productivity growth has historically been public investments in research. But those investments have been flat in real terms since the 1980s, raising questions about prospects for continued agricultural productivity growth in the future.

Slow going

With prices suffering from the effects of high natural gas demand, anhydrous ammonia application wasn’t something you may have relished this season. But then, there is a historical perspective to consider. In this photo anhydrous ammonia is applied in what looks to be a single-knife applicator—and without benefit of a cabbed tractor. The photo was taken near Bernie, Mo., in 1955. According to the United States Geological Service’s Minerals and Material Analysis Section, nitrogen prices were about $65 per ton that year. And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index formula, that’s about $481 in today’s dollars. We wonder what the conversion on cost of labor would be for the price of a modern tractor.

Talent on agriculture

Missouri U.S. Senator Jim Talent stopped at the Jefferson City Agri Services to deliver a speech about the upcoming farm bill debate in Washington, D.C. Talent said that as a member of the Senate agriculture committee, he is excited to get a debate underway.

“There’s a few things I’ve been wanting to get off my chest in defense of production agriculture. There have recently been what I consider a series of negative or even hostile acts toward agriculture attempted or coming out of Washington. For example, this is

the second year in a row that the administration has proposed cuts in farm programs—even while trade talks are pending when those same programs are bargaining chips we need to get marketing access to other countries.”

Talent said that big issues like spring rise on the Missouri River and the funding for locks and dams on the Mississippi continue to be a challenge at the federal level.

“When they talk about not wanting bridges to nowhere, what they mean is that the people in small towns and the rural areas don’t need and shouldn’t even ask for better roads for their families and better transportation for their products.”

His speech delivered a message that agriculture’s portion of the federal budget is nothing to be ashamed of and is, in fact, quite small in terms of overall spending. The senator said that at times on Capitol Hill, agriculture is treated with contempt.

“The next farm bill is going to be written in the house and senate committee, not by our trade representative or trade partners; and it’s certainly not going to be written by the Office for Management and Budget,” he said.

“I don’t begrudge anybody in Washington an honest difference of opinion about farm policy. What bothers me is the attitude that I see underlying the recent wave of negative proposals. It’s one thing to believe honestly and in good faith—albeit

mistakenly in my opinion—that the government is providing too much support to farmers and ranchers. It’s another thing to be patronizing or even contemptuous of agriculture…to treat farmers as if they are a relic of a bygone age. [These critics] may have studied abstract economics, but they know almost nothing about the mechanics of farming and ranching, and they do know nothing about the true value of agriculture to the American economy and the American life,” Talent said.

A few tips for fencing

The NRCS recently published Electric Fencing for Serious Graziers, an illustrated guide to building electric fence. The guide covers everything from variations on corner posts to lightning chokes, electric gates and water gaps. To get a copy, stop by your local NRCS office.