The Diversity of Agriculture

I had the opportunity week before last to attend the Sunbelt Exposition in Moultrie, Georgia. The Sunbelt Expo is billed as the largest farm show in the country. You certainly couldn’t disprove that by me. It was enormous.

The thing that impressed me most about the farm show was the diversity of agricultural enterprises that were represented. It was eye-opening to this West Texas native to see the wide variety of production practices. Some of them might hold promise for our area.

One of the first things that I noticed was the forestry section of the show. Lumber is an important agricultural crop in the Southeast. There were many equipment dealers and nurseries represented whose focus was on that industry. I don’t think trees are likely to become an important cash crop for our area in the near future. However, it would be nice to have a few around to slow down the wind occasionally.

Another area that received a significant amount of attention was poultry. It takes a lot of specialized equipment for large-scale broiler houses to function. One of the most interesting pieces of equipment for that industry was called a “bio-vator.” It’s purpose is not the most pleasant, but it is necessary. It is designed to turn carcasses into mulch. It consists of a long tube that looks somewhat like an exhaust pipe. It was about 4 feet in diameter and about 40 feet long. The carcasses went in one end where sawdust was added. When they came out the other end 14 days later, they were mulch. Supposedly there was virtually no odor. It could handle around 500 lbs of carcasses per day.

The Aquaculture section was also interesting. They had dug shallow ponds in the Expo grounds, lined them, and installed an aerator. One was full of catfish and one was full of shrimp. There were daily demonstrations on techniques for raising each. They also served some tasty lunches made right on the spot from freshly harvested shrimp and catfish.

Of course there were sections of the Expo related to crops that are more familiar to our area. These included corn, cotton and soybeans. Along with these crops though were sections for tobacco cultivation. Peanuts also is an important crop that was represented.

Another important crop for that area is pecans. Most of the river bottoms contained magnificent pecan trees. There were instructional seminars on proper pruning and care of the trees as well as equipment for harvesting the pecans. The scale was geared from a push-type gatherer for one or two trees up to mechanical harvest equipment for large orchards.

Because of the large amount of fruit production in the area, there were sections devoted to fruit trees and berries. That section held seminars on beekeeping which is necessary for consistent fruit production.

Livestock practices represented ranged from the poultry which I’ve already mentioned, to alpacas, swine, goats, sheep, and cattle. Most of the cattle related booths were focused on cow-calf production. The cattle breeds were the most interesting thing to me. There is a high percentage of Brahman influence in many of the breeds. Heat tolerance is definitely an issue.

The diversity of agriculture represented could be a lesson to us here on the High Plains of Texas. Many of the crops are not suitable to our climate, but some of them are. Diversifying to multiple crops can help to reduce risk from year to year. In years when some crops perform poorly, other crops may do well. We have tended to limit our production to only a handful of crops in this area. It may become increasingly important to look at alternative crops as a way of spreading market and weather risk.