A sharper focus on the economic impact of the lower Delta backwater flood of 2019 helps predict the implications of continued flooding this year. Mississippi State University Extension Service researchers compiled data on the overlooked costs of the backwater flood that affected the Yazoo Mississippi Delta in 2019. They surveyed residents in the five affected counties in an attempt to ... Read More »
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” When asked this question in my younger years, my response was never “a farmer.” Not because I didn’t want to be one, but back in the day, not many “girls” chose that vocation. As a member of a fourth-generation farming family who raised cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat near Jackson, ... Read More »
This work traces the struggles of five generations of Olivers from the late 1800s to the present in the Mississippi Delta. In the 1870s, James Samuel Oliver arrived in the Mississippi Delta by swimming across the Mississippi River—with a fresh bullet wound in his leg. He later journeyed deep into the swampy wilderness known as the Mississippi Delta. Oliver cleared ... Read More »
All of Mississippi’s 2019 cotton crop has emerged, but it’s off to a slow start. Of approximately 700,000 acres of cotton planted statewide this year, 57% is rated fair or worse by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as of July 8. The crop’s delayed progress is a familiar refrain among Mississippi farmers this year: Wet weather significantly delayed planting. In ... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-MS, has asked President Donald Trump to approve use of temporary pumps in the Yazoo Backwater Area to begin removing floodwaters that have contaminated the region for months on end. In a letter sent June 13 to the president, Hyde-Smith summarized the statutes, presidential disaster declaration and emergency funding available to support the installation of temporary ... Read More »
Cotton Planting Described As Mixed Bag In 2019. • By Carroll Smith, Editor • This year’s planting season has been a mixed bag with Mother Nature taking the reins in producing unusual weather in some areas of the Cotton Belt. Other parts of the U.S. cotton-growing region were somewhat dry and waiting on a rain to get seed in the ... Read More »
“I’m just a cotton pickin’ Coast girl with a camera and a pen.” I didn’t grow up around cotton and didn’t know what a boll of cotton looked like until I was 18 years of age in 1978, as a freshman at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. That doesn’t mean it didn’t affect my life on a daily basis ... Read More »
Cotton Farming One Grower Publications