My father-in-law, of whom I acknowledge that I am fortunate to have, used to periodically ask me if my father still raised tobacco on our farm in Montgomery County, Tennessee. That was before the Montgomery County Industrial Development Authority decided that it would be a good thing to make the citizens of Montgomery County purchase our farm for future industrial development.
This sale was consumated at a time when Montgomery County was competing with a county in Alabama for a new automobile manufacturing site. In an effort to appear more attractive, Montgomery County purchased our family farm and the adjoining farm to provide a site along Interstate 24 with access to an entrance/exit ramp and with proximity to the existing Industrial Park.
As Burns said, "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley." The manufacturing facility went to Alabama and now Montgomery County owns several hundred acres of formerly prime agricultural land without any present improvements other than two roads cut into the ends of the property. The homes which were situated on the land have now been torn down. Schade, schade, schade.
Getting back to where I started with this, my father in law was always concerned that we were contributing to the health problems of America by sowing tobacco plants in the soil. Of course, the problem was that tobacco was the major cash crop for farmers in that part of the country from the early settlement of the area. The area was settled predominantly by Virginians and North Carolinians, who had burned the soil in their former home states and couldn't grow tobacco like they had in earlier times. Any wealth that was accumulated in my family over the years was strictly due to the cultivation of tobacco. It runs through my veins.
The question I have at this point is what would you have us grow, if not tobacco? My father always said that if Montgomery County would allow him to sow one crop of marijuana and not prosecute him, he would agree not to grow anymore. Ever. They were never willing to go along with that deal.
I remember seeing my father's farm account tax returns and seeing how little he made on cultivating one hundred and fifty acres of land in Tennessee. It was a piddling amount. No wonder he went off to college and left the farm upon which he was raised as quickly as he could. I don't know how you would get a young person to choose to live and work on a farm these days.
And that doesn't mean that life on the farm doesn't have its charms. No one in my family looks on the farm with anything less than love and sentimental yearning. There are many wonderful memories. But, on the other hand, we didn't live and work the farm. My grandparents did that. And we didn't have to try to make a go of it in the farming economy of today.
The producing portion of our national economy is quickly disintegrating around our ears. First the farms were sold for development. Then the factories were shut down and closed up. We look to the third world to produce the things we need. Now we have only vinyl farms, industrial parks and empty manufacturing buildings.
The question is ultimately how we feed ourselves and how we produce the products that we need. Food, shelter and transportation. Can we really depend on other countries to provide the necessities of our lives?
One argument for the development of rapid rail in Georgia is that the rights of way for the tracks still exist. The implementation of the railroad system would only require the emplacement of new tracks on the rights of way which already exist and the development of the rail service which covered Georgia at one time and provided transportation and industry for the entire state. Metropolitan Atlanta was founded on the railroad and transportation. The Atlanta Airport is the foundation of its present wealth. We have an International City because we have access to the world through transportation.
Georgia was once called the Empire State of the South, simply because it's products, both agricultural and industrial could be transported by rail and by sea to the rest of the country and to the world. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for farming and industrial production in modern Georgia. Farmland or sufficient land which could be used for farming is disappearing. Industrial strength is being shipped of to Latin America and Asia. The capital needed to develop new industry is drying up. What do we do?
You can't eat real estate developments or industrial parks.
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