Word: harvester
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...SMALL FAMILY FARMER dates back to Thomas Jefferson, who hailed humble "cultivators of the earth" as America's "most valuable" and "most virtuous" citizens. Politicians still paint American Gothic portraits of the country folk who toil in the soil to grow our food and fiber. But at the Husker Harvest Days farm show in September in Grand Island, Neb., it was clear how far American agriculture had come from the days when Cornhuskers husked corn by hand...
...earth" didn't have genetically engineered seeds or 530-horsepower tractors. They had 1-horsepower horses. And they didn't have subsidies either. In fact, most antebellum farmers opposed all federal aid to private enterprise, assuming it would just enrich manufacturing élites. The lesson of Husker Harvest Days is that modern farmers--at least the ones with most of the land and subsidies--are a new manufacturing élite. They just happen to be manufacturing food and fiber. Production agriculture is a high-tech, globalized business with economies of scale. You don't buy a $410,000 combine...
There are risks, of course, perhaps the biggest being agricultural. "Your harvest is only as good as God gives you," says Stevens. "Do you get two tons to the acre, or do you get five tons to the acre?" Competitive risk comes via foreign wine sales, which are gaining market share. They accounted for 29.4% of the U.S. wine sales in 2006, up from 27% in 2005, according to Silicon Valley Bank, although much of these gains were in cheaper wines...
Despite that delisting, the promises of international funds never materialized and the program was dropped in 2001. Most years since, the ripening hashish crops are destroyed shortly before the harvest by drug police protected by hundreds of Lebanese troops. But this year, the Lebanese army's manpower was stretched to the limit with security commitments in Beirut, along the southern border with Israel, the eastern border with Syria and in the north of the country where troops fought a bloody three-month battle against Islamist militants during the summer hashish growing season. Furthermore, the hashish farmers threatened to burn down...
After Colonel Machmouchi and his men were shot at by heavily armed fighters, the annual hashish eradication program was abandoned for fear of provoking a popular uprising against the government. But the farmers say that this year's successful harvest is only the beginning. "We are tired of being hungry. We view the government as an enemy and from now on we are going to grow hashish and we don't care what the government says or tries to do," said Ahmad, a hashish farmer. It is an argument that fails to win the sympathy of Lebanon's drug police...