Most of what is farmed in Mississippi and the rest of the country isn’t food that goes on Americans’ tables. It is soybeans grown for animal feed, corn grown for ethanol, rice grown to export to Central America and so on. The fruits and vegetables that Mississippians eat are probably grown in California or in other countries.
Oops! Now that we’ve perpetuated a global economic hierarchy of trade with raw agriculture products outsourced to India, it no longer makes economic sense to grow broadacre monocrops in our wealthy country.
Please, won’t someone think of the poor struggling farmers who only farm 11,000 acres with 3 people? Just the modest area of 17 square miles, 3000 times what freed slaves in Reconstruction dreamed of in order to satisfy their every need, an area that would take you 2 hours to walk from one end to the other.
There’s just no way to make that land profitable. No way at all.