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Much of rural America grows corn or soybeans. You can drive for literally hundreds of miles and only see these two crops. And it’s not even a corn that is edibl
by dexwiz 3y ago
Much of rural America grows corn or soybeans. You can drive for literally hundreds of miles and only see these two crops. And it’s not even a corn that is edible, it’s grown to be processed or fed to other animals. Vegetable production is isolated to a few areas. Even then they are often limited to a few crops with narrow seasonality. You can grow vegetables in these areas but it’s not profitable.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago> Much of rural America grows corn or soybeans. Not in the parts of rural America this article is focusing on. In Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, etc, where they grow ridiculous amounts of corn and soybeans, the land is way too valuable to allow widespread poverty to occupy it. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but it’s nothing like the scale of the rural south.
- dexwiz 3y agoNot sure what you mean by the is. Indiana, Illinois both have higher population densities than Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri. (Although I bet Chicago distorts Illinois' population). Only Iowa's is lower and not by much. There are tons of small towns in these states with a few hundred in population that used to support some industrial center that has since been sent overseas or a farming economy that required more people. They also often have crippling poverty, high drug use rates, and low standards of living. Indiana literally had an HIV outbreak a few years ago. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27468059/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27468059/ I don't want to compare levels of misery, but these states aren't much better off.