From cotton farmers to poultry growers: The rise of industrial agriculture in upcountry Georgia, 1914--1960.

摘要

"From Cotton Farmers to Poultry Growers: The Rise of Industrial Agriculture in Upcountry Georgia, 1914-1960" examines the rise of American agribusiness. Focusing on the growth of the poultry industry---an industry regarded as the model for American agribusiness---this local history tells the story of the agricultural industrialization that transformed the South and the nation in the twentieth century. Farmers in Upcountry Georgia---like legions of Southerners---welcomed agribusiness, with its promise of prosperity and jobs. They watched industrial agriculture reshape their fields and countryside, as they assumed the burdens of the industry: low wages and profits, contaminated water, and the problem of waste disposal. The dissertation argues that small landowning cotton farmers turned to poultry growing to diversify their crop production, to escape agricultural poverty, to make a profit on infertile land that yielded little, and to flee the whims of the cotton market. As they shifted from cotton to poultry, however, these farmers failed to escape the problems of a one-crop economy. The dissertation explains how the seeds of a multi-billion dollar industry were sown and explores what was lost, what was gained, and how the profits and burdens of agribusiness were distributed.