Tenant Hunt Program to Deal With Farm Labor Shortage, 1945

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the January 5, 1945, issue of the Wilmington Morning Star

Pender County has organized a unique movement to help out in the farm labor situation this season. It appears now that the labor supply for 1945 in North Carolina will be from 25 to 30 per cent under that which was available for 1944, and many young men between the ages of 26 and 37 are much worried about whether it will be wise for them to start a crop this year. They reason that if they are to be inducted into the armed services after they have made all plans for a crop, their work will have gone for nothing because there would be no one left at home to carry on the farming operations.

In Pender County, the farm labor assistant has tried to meet this situation by organizing what he designates as a “Tenant Hunt Program.” There are so many farms which will likely lie idle in the county this season that the hunt is becoming increasingly important. The idea is to find tenants who are not needed where they are and to place them where they are more vitally needed.

Some tenants have their own teams, others have no equipment at all; some want to be near town, others are perfectly satisfied where they are; and so on down the list of the several differences. It is hard, says the county agent’s labor assistant, to fit the tenant to the farm. Yet, if North Carolina is to meet its production of food, feed, and fiber for this year every available person must be used to the greatest advantage. L.P. Weeks of Duplin County says there are just not enough tenants to go around in this county and some families have moved as many as four times since harvesting last season’s crops. To make matters worse, some landlords are bidding against each other for the available tenants. Much of this is due, in eastern Carolina, to the need of labor for growing tobacco. J.E. Dodson of Brunswick County says the farmers of his county are more interested in growing tobacco than in all other crops combined.

Along with other county agents in the flue-cured areas, Mr. Dodson says many farmers will plant more tobacco than they can get harvested, especially if the labor situation gets worse than it is now and he says, “It looks decidedly as if that will be the case. In Wilson County, where 70 million pounds of bright leaf tobacco was sold last season for over $30 million, the labor situation is especially tight. The cotton crop of 1944 is still not completely picked with some fields not even touched. Farmers are offering one-half the crop for picking without any one apparently interested. In Hoke County, despairing growers have been using cottonseed forks to harvest seed cotton growing on low stalks heavily fruited. They say that the gins have been doing a good job in cleaning out the burrs and stems and that the lint is selling for only one cent a pound less than the price for hand-picked cotton.

It is interesting to note that a new factor has come into the farm labor situation this year. Heretofore, farmers have been concerned about the effects of the draft or the pull of high wages in war production factories. Now the factor of gasoline rationing must be considered. Tenants who are not allowed extra gas for their cars want to move nearer to town so that their “A” card will do for trips for supplies and other necessary items. Those owners who have farms farthest from town have, in some counties, been unable to interest anyone in farming for them. It is true that the OPA ration boards have been looking at this situation with careful consideration but some of the boards in the larger towns seem to know only the book of regulations rather than the more adequate guidance of commonsense.

The situation, however, is not entirely hopeless on the labor front. For instance, reports indicate that farm machinery, generally, has been put into good repair during the idle days of winter and is more nearly ready for spring work than in many a year. Farmers also have been taking stock of the situation in each local community and they know what extent they can exchange labor in emergency periods and how small growers may exchange hand labor for machinery aid. The neighborhood leaders have taken an active part in this appraisal of local conditions and have been encouraging everyone in each neighborhood to rely upon his own initiative this year. There is no extra help available from the next neighborhood, from the next community, or from the next county. Each farm must look after itself with what help it can secure on an exchange basis. There will be some German prisoners available and probably some transient labor, in the main centers of emergency need, but the rank and file of farmers will just have to look after themselves.

They are preparing to do this. Last year, Cleveland County increased its milk supply by 16 per cent despite the reduction in labor.

Burke County grew one of its best crops. This county is a good example of what people can do when they come face to face with a serious problem. This little county harvested 287,500 bushels of corn on 12,500 acres of land; saved 6,000 tons of hay from 6,500 acres; combined 75,000 bushels of wheat from 6,000 acres; sold 1,000 bales of cotton from 1,400 acres for about $100,000; produced 160,000 bushels of sweet and Irish potatoes on 1,500 acres; harvested $300,000 worth of garden and vegetable crops from 3,000 acres; and filled about a million jars of food from these same acres. The farmers brooded 200,000 chicks from which they saved 60,000 laying hens; produced 1,500,000 pounds of milk from 4,000 cows; cured about $1,600,000 pounds of meat from 6,000 hogs and supplied over $700,000 worth of timber products from their farms. Like farm owners in all the other 99 counties of North Carolina they did it with less of everything and in spite of storms, dry weather and the varying vicissitudes of weather and climate. They will do so again this year.