Introduction and Preview

INTRODUCTION AND PREVIEW Out-of-date regional classifications can perpetuate false images, especially if they are institutionalized by being placed on maps. This has been the fate of O. E. Baker’s, “Agricultural Regions of North America,” published in 1926 as part of a world-wide classification of agricultural areas. (1) The regions into which the southeastern United States was divided were the Com and Winter Wheat Belt, Cotton Belt, Subtropical Crops Belt and the Middle Atlantic Trucking Belt. The largest of these areas, the Cotton Belt, has been used to this day to describe agricultural land use in the South and can still be found on maps of the area. This longevity, of course, is not unusual in a discipline where the order of regional maps in world atlases can be traced back in unbroken sequence to that of Ptolemy. These traditional modes of presentation should be changed, however, when they convey false information. Agricultural land use in the South today is vastly different than it was 44 years ago and changes in these map labels and regional classifications are long overdue. (2) The purpose of this special issue on agriculture in the South is to provide substantive information about the current state of agricultural production in the area. This issue is directed at geographers (and others) both in the South and elsewhere who wish to update their knowledge of this region. It should be required reading for all authors contemplating a textbook in which the southeastern United States will be included. This issue is not the definitive study of agriculture in the South today; it is only a beginning. It gathers together some of the most knowledgeable individuals in the region to describe and analyze some aspects of southern agriculture which differ most widely from the “traditional” view. The coverage is not comprehensive either areally or topically. Perhaps two major themes recur again and again and serve to unify the issue: a) the rapidity of change in agricultural land use in the South today, and b ) how little we know about the processes generating change and how much work remains to be done. The articles are arranged in four major groups by areal coverage and subject matter. Prunty examines in detail the most widely held miscon­ ceptions about agriculture in the South and documents the real situation. He includes as modern-day myths the image of the South as having a pre­ dominantly poor, rural, agrarian population living on small landholdings under the yoke of share-crop tenant agreements; and the image of cotton as “king” throughout the area in a monoculture. Prunty estimates that less than seven percent of the South’s population today are functional farmers and adds a timely word of caution about interpreting census sta­ tistics on farm size in the South. He reiterates his previously documented statement that cotton production today is highly concentrated in six dis­ tricts which make up only six percent of the South’s total land area. A sub­ stantial part of Prunty’s article is devoted to highlighting some of the un­ known facets of rural land use in the region. Hopefully, the questions he raises will stimulate readers to help provide the answers. iii S o u t h e a s t e r n G e o g r a p h e r Anderson, Durand, and Hawley and Bunn examine three region-wide aspects of southern agriculture. Anderson analyzes the importance, distri­ bution and current problems of tobacco, peanut, sugar cane, rice, fruit and nut, vegetable, horticultural plant, broiler and egg production in the South. These products of “specialized agriculture” reflect the growing importance of product specialization and the increasing concentration of production in the most favored areas. He finds that southern agriculture accounts for 44 percent of the total United States production of these commodities, while they represent 46 percent of the value of all farm products sold in the region. Perhaps the most striking finding of Anderson’s study is the widespread areal dependence upon income from specialized agricultural production throughout the South. Durand reviews the locations, types, and markets of dairy farms in the South. He finds dairy farming in this...