Cotton Contract Farming

A Sharecropping Contract was a contract between Thomas J. Ross, and the Freedmen. This contract was an agreement for Thomas J. Ross to allow the Freedmen to plant and raise crop on his plantation, so long as the workers followed certain rules and regulations. The background of the parties under the contract were the Freedmen’s desire to be independent from having to work under the authority of Whites, and planters’ desire to have disciplined labor working under them. The contracts intended audience was between planter and labor force. Within the contract, Thomas J. Ross agreed to provide the Freedmen labor workers and their families with provisions, and any expenses that were needed within the plantation, as well as any tools needed for work.

Modern day farming has transformed from the farming process of last century. Instead of farmers producing for their families, farmers are now similar to input/output managers supplying massive manufacturers that feed the country.

This combined with the cultural and geographical distances (Freidberg, 2003, p. 33) has resulted in “homogenisation of the supply chain” in Africa (Freidberg, 2003, p. 34). The major vegetable suppliers are primarily large white-run farms. The author calls them “Benign dictators” (Freidberg, 2003, p. 33). These companies do not only have capacity to supply large quantities of vegetables but are also culturally similar to the supermarket buyers.

Factory farming is currently meeting the needs of supply and demand which is beneficial to the economy. However, with the lack of regulations and enforcement of current regulations by authority entities such as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it is ethically and morally unjustifiable for these corporations to practice and conduct business this way. The USDA and FDA are not the only players who are to accept blame in this unethical practice. State and federal laws should investigate and collaborate with those agencies to develop, execute, and retain safe and clean practices. Perdue Farms should also accept personal responsibility and be concerned about their workplace, their employees, the animals that make them money, and the consumers. The ethical theory being put into place

I had a hard time picking my Mercy Moment, but after reading this article on Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson, I knew this would be a good topic. Ronald was charged of an act he never committed. He served eleven years behind bars for no reason at all. One thing that made Cotton seem more suspicious was his previous relations with a white woman. He was in a relationship with a white woman for a couple of months so, to the police he seemed even more guilty. Ronald was then convicted to serve life in prison with fifty-five plus years. He then was convicted of another rape that also happened that night and was punished with two life sentences along with one-hundred and eighty plus years. It was not until eleven years served, 1995, that Cotton was founded not guilty after taking a DNA test that was just newly founded. Thompson grieved for picking Cotton, she felt horrible. She was happy to see him behind bars, the man she believed hurt her. But, after cops showed up to her door to tell her Cotton was not the one who raped her it was Poole, she immediately felt terrible. She then approached Cotton and told her how sorry she was and how terrible she felt. Cotton, with the heart he has, forgave her. They then went out to write a book together titled, Picking Cotton. In this book it talks about the trial, how Thompson felt after

labor” (Foner, 393). Cotton not only became the most profitable crop for the Southern farmers,

After the compromise of 1877 and after slavery was destroyed a new farming style emerged. This was the agricultural ladder. In said ladder were five “steps.” The first step was the landless laborer. Normally these people were freedmen, poor whites, and (sometimes) immigrants who did not have enough money to buy their own farms to operate. Next was the sharecropper; this person was responsible for a crop but would still borrow what they needed from stores on a crop lien basis. This meaning they would earn one third to one half of their designated crops income. The goal of this person was to gain enough to buy a mule and other equipment so that they could move up in the agricultural ladder; which meant becoming the renter. The renter normally

During the first time of European settlers in US, the settlers of the South were mainly attracted to the grand potential for agricultural growth. The South, with its flat terrain, warm climate and abundance of water recourses, presented terrific conditions for growing crops for longer seasons.

“By 1861, the start of the Civil War, Southern slave plantations supplied more than 80 percent of surging world demand for cotton. Britain alone bought one billion pounds, as did the rest of Europe and the United States.” 3 “The south, able to grow cotton very profitably at much lower price than ever before (or anywhere else), became the natural empire of King Cotton as the demand of the British and New England mills became insatiable.”4 The demand for cotton from England and New England prompted the expansion of cotton farms and plantations that eventually began pushing out the food-crops. Smaller food-crop farmers sold out to larger plantation owners creating a shortage of food growth. The South’s economy began to depend on the cotton crop.

Sharecropping is the agreement between white plantation owners and former slaves or poor whites to hold a portion of land to pay rent and farm on, while they pay the owners a portion of earnings from the crops they produce. This way, if the former slaves or poor whites were not eligible to begin farming on their own due to their lack of money and/or tools, they can at least earn a small portion of their own to begin. The two sources in this essay are both contract agreements between land owner and sharecroppers. Both present similar ideas and specifications within their own contract, including responsibilities for the croppers aside from planting such as cleaning the stables, ditching, and fencing, while also proposing differences, such as

Cotton used to be one of the most important crops in Georgia and is still widely produced today in Georgia. As of 2014, Georgia produces the second most cotton of any state at 1.4 million acres. The entire economy of Georgia relied heavily on the agriculture industry, with cotton being a major part of that industry. Throughout the years, cotton itself has affected the southern economy and by extension the lives of many Georgians, and continues to do so today on a smaller scale. From the economical importance of the cotton plant, it can be derived that cotton has also had a significant effect on the history of the state of Georgia.

The plantation was the center of the agriculture life. Large-scale agriculture is still important as many countries rely on these products as they put large strain on export –oriented growth. Only recently has there been any significant attempts at industrialization and many countries are economically backward.

Contract is defined as an agreement between two or more parties creating obligations that are enforceable or otherwise recognizable at law. For purposes of this chapter, we are concerned with agreements to buy and sell some type of agricultural product. Contracts 101 You should be concerned about contract law because it determines how parties to the contract will need to keep the promises they make. Although very few contracts ever end up in court, if the parties to a contract disagree on something and are unable to resolve the disagreement, they may have to resort to the judicial process. This means that as the parties negotiate a contract, they need to consider how a judge might ultimately interpret it. For a contract to be enforceable, it must involve:

Poultry is by far the number one meat consumed in America; it is versatile, relatively inexpensive compared to other meats, and most importantly it can be found in every grocery store through out the United States. All of those factors are made possible because of factory farming. Factory farming is the reason why consumers are able to purchase low-priced poultry in their local supermarket and also the reason why chickens and other animals are being seen as profit rather than living, breathing beings. So what is exactly is factory farming? According to Ben Macintyre, a writer and columnist of The Times, a British newspaper and a former chicken farm worker, he summed up the goal of any factory farm “... to produce the maximum quantity of

In light of this, I would like to explore research frontiers in the area of the challenges of managing food and farm businesses in a global setting of the 21st Century. In our society beleaguered by agricultural problems that ranges from economic to environmental problems such as weather and global warming, issues concerning trade and management of agricultural enterprises has been the topic of debate for the past decade. Many developing/poor countries who earn their living from agriculture continuously suffer from poverty and hunger as a result of the increasing pressures on the world's resource base. Policymakers are gripped with finding solutions to problems such as structural and technological constraints, inappropriate domestic policies and an unfavourable external economic environment. As a result, the growth of these economies has been slow, undernourishment has been increasing and the marginalization of these countries in the global economy has continued. This trend has created problems for developing countries over the past decade. Economic and financial