Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Treasure Chest Thursday - Small Farmers Fight Agribusiness

Among the treasures found in Kay Maki’s scrapbook is an article that appeared in the Ithaca Journal in the 1950s. Even then small farmers had to compete against the growing and powerful agribusiness that was crushing family farms and in so doing, destroying a whole way of life.  This is how my husband’s family fought agribusiness.

From Left: Elmer Maki, Paul Cutter, Eugene Maki
“How three neighboring farmers near Newfield have learned to share labor and machinery, so that they can compete in production with large-scale farms, is told in the March issue of Country Gentleman.  The three are Elmer and Eugene Maki and Paul Cutter, who farm a total of 606 acres.  In swapping work and machinery, they are finding out how to mechanize and how to have use of the latest labor-saving machines, without going too far into debt. They own their machinery separately, the magazine says, and their inventory includes a hay baler, a grain combine, a corn planter, corn picker, forage harvester, blower, five tractors, two trucks and the usual smaller equipment.”

No comments:

Post a Comment