Foodless, foolish farmers is the text of an adjuration in the University News Letter to quit being foolish and produce more food. The statistics given are startling and should rouse to energy every farmer who is not providing for his family. After stating how far behind the state is in the matter of “food farmers” the article points out that many people on the arm live on short rations the year round. It says in part:
The simple truth is that thousands of our farms to not begin to feed the farm family and livestock. The people on these farms live on short rations, especially in lean years. Their diet is ill-balanced and insufficient. They are undernourished, their children badly fed and their physical development stunted. How could it be otherwise when 100,000 farmers have no milk cows and consume no butter or milk, when nearly 50,000 farms have no hogs, when half of all our farms produce no sweet potatoes, and seven-tenths of them no Irish potatoes, when 44,197 farms have no gardens and produce no vegetables? Farm people should be the best fed of all people. They should and could have a well-balanced diet, with just a little attention to farm production. Every farm in our state should feed itself first. Our farmers would produce surpluses for sale in our towns and cities if only our towns and cities would settle the local market problem for home-raised food and feed supplies. Neglecting home-raised food crops and buying farm supplies of this sort with cotton and tobacco money is a hopeless way of getting rich and getting on and up in the world. We have tried it for 70 years and we ought to know it by this time.
The following table shows the number of stockless, foodless farmers in North Carolina in 1920:
Total farms in the state, 269,763
Farms with no cattle, 78,957 (29.3%)
With no milk cows, 99,559 (36.9%)
With no sheep, 262,022 (97.2%)
With no hogs, 47,733 (17.7%)
Growing no corn, 16,737 (6.2%)
Growing no oats, 235,116 (87.2%)
Growing no wheat, 180,425 (67.6%)
Growing no hay or forage, 134,424 (49.8%)
Growing no Irish potatoes, 190,694 (70.7%)
Growing no sweet potatoes, 132,533 (49.1%)
Having no garden, 44,197 (16.4%)
From The Greensboro Patriot, published every Monday and Thursday, April 10, 1922
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