Sporting Life
The Old Home Place
Where have the small farmers gone?
By Tom Bryant
As I slowly rocked back and forth in one of Mama’s old rockers, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know a single solitary farmer anymore. It was quite a revelation in as much as my father was the first in our family not to make a living on the farm.
Linda, my bride, and I were visiting my sister who lives in the old home place in South Carolina. We had been reminiscing about old times and catching up on the latest news from the family. It was mid-July and hot, as only July can be in the low country. The ladies were inside putting together a light lunch, and I was suffering through the heat on the front porch of the ancient Southern house.
Built in 1830, the vintage old home was constructed to handle the Southern heat. A long rain porch supported by columns stretched across the front of the house. The structure was constructed so that it faced east to utilize the prevailing winds. It also rested on brick foundation posts about 5 feet off the ground. Inside, 14-foot ceilings dispersed the heat, and 6-foot windows helped what breeze there was to circulate.
It was still July, though, and hot. My sister had installed air-conditioning when Mom was still alive, and it made all the difference. But I remembered earlier times when the only real way to cool off was to take a dip in Black Creek, a little stream that slowly meandered down the northern border of the property.
My Uncle Tommy was the last to plant the cleared acreage of the farm, growing corn, wheat, soybeans and cotton. As a youngster, I can remember cotton stretching to the horizon like a new snowfall, and then later, there was a green sea of tobacco.
Tobacco was the money crop in the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s. My granddad planted many acres of tobacco, and I used to follow him around as he checked on his growing crop. He often said that the best fertilizer a farmer could have are his footsteps in the field, and we sure made a bunch of those.
I never really understood how tobacco allotments were given to growers — even though Granddad tried to explain it to me a time or two — but after doing a little research, I found that, like with a lot of things that involved money, the government held forth. They imposed production limits on individual tobacco growers but guaranteed an artificially high price for the crop. That policy maintained order in the tobacco growing business for years and kept many small farms alive. A farmer in those early days could realize an average profit of $2,000 an acre, enough to keep him down on the farm.
Farming has changed in tremendous ways. A good example would be our own homestead, which was broken up and inherited by different members of the family. No one actually works the land, but the cleared farm acreage is leased to huge conglomerates who bring in giant agriculture equipment and plant hundreds of acres in a short period of time. When harvest season rolls around, they gather the crop in the same way, in and out quickly with little manual labor involved.
In the days of tobacco growing on Granddad’s place, I learned the hard way how much work it took to grow a good crop and, more than that, how much real labor it took to harvest. Priming tobacco, or picking the leaves for curing in the barn, was designed to make men out of boys, or so said Granddad. I never had to do a lot of that dirty, mind-numbing labor, just enough to satisfy me that I wasn’t cut out for it. After a day in the field, I would return to the kitchen porch of the old house, sticky and black with tobacco tar. Grandmother greeted me, saying, “Hose off all that dirt before you come in and mess up my kitchen.”
Over the years I’ve had baths and showers in wonderful places, but nothing could beat the pleasure of standing under that cold, streaming hose after a blistering day under a South Carolina summer sun.
Nothing stays the same, and agriculture is no different. The days of small farms are gone forever.
A soft breeze began to blow out of the east, offering a little relief from the July sun, and as I watched a big red-tail hawk fly lazy circles in the cloudless sky, I thought back to an encounter I had with big tobacco when I was still doing my day job.
Business North Carolina magazine hired me after I decided to come out of early retirement. I realized that I needed something constructive to do other than fish and hunt. Linda agreed with that decision whole-heartedly. The organization made me regional sales manager of the Triad area of North Carolina.
My territory included Danville, Virginia, home of Debrell Brothers Tobacco, an old established company going back to 1873. This tobacco business purchases, processes and sells leaf tobacco, and operates as an importer and exporter. They do business in 24 countries throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and South America.
I learned long ago in the selling business, if you don’t ask, how can you tell if a potential customer wants your product? It took several months of phone calls and messages, but eventually I wrangled an appointment to meet with the marketing director and a couple of his assistants about a special promotion that BNC had in the works.
I was up and at ’em early the morning of our meeting. When I’m in a new area I try to be a little early. A few extra minutes sometimes can save you a lot of trouble. Today would reinforce that notion.
I pulled into Danville in plenty of time to get a cup of coffee at the local McDonald’s. I sat in the old Bronco sipping coffee and going over the presentation I had put together the evening before. My briefcase was open on the passenger’s seat, and noticing the time, I put everything back in the case and eased into traffic heading to the Debrell office. As I neared a railroad track crossing, the car in front of me stopped suddenly. I still had half a cup of coffee, and the abrupt stop dumped it right into my open briefcase.
Disaster.
What to do? My appointment was in 15 minutes. I pulled in the parking lot of the office, hopped out, got the soggy media kits out of the case and used a wad of Kleenex to try and sop up the rest of the coffee that was staining everything. It was time for the meeting with people I had never met before.
Well, I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound.
The receptionist was sitting well back in the corner of the entrance to the offices. A hall led down the center of the building. Everything was mahogany and polished brass, accented with deep oriental rugs. The entire place reeked of money.
After I introduced myself she said, “Your meeting will be in the central conference room. I’ll walk you back there.”
The marketing director and his assistants were waiting and cordially greeted me as I entered the opulent space. Paintings of farm scenes, mostly featuring tobacco, were on the spacious walls.
After everyone was settled, the receptionist asked if she could get me some coffee. The other folks were sipping theirs from china cups and looking at me expectantly.
“Well, ma’am,” I hesitantly said, “I just had a cup. Most of it is still in my briefcase.”
I then pulled the soggy media kits from my case, holding them so they wouldn’t drip on the rugs. After I explained the particulars of the mishap, it took a while for them to stop laughing.
They bought a six-month contract with their first ad to appear in Business North Carolina’s special promotion. It proved my theory: You never know what to expect in the selling business.
The marketing director walked me to the door, and on the way we talked about the future of tobacco.
“Tom,” he said, “since the government has done away with the allotment program that guaranteed tobacco prices, there’s nothing a small farmer can grow that will replace that income. You remember all those small tobacco farms you passed on the way up here? In five years they’ll all be gone.”
Linda came out on the porch. “Time for lunch.” she said. “What have you been doing out here in the hot?”
“Thinking about farming.” I replied, “and small farmers and wondering what they’re doing now.” PS
Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.