1940-2008: The Era of Industrial Agriculture
As agriculture became more established in Rice County, the techniques farmers used changed to adapt to the changing needs of the people and the land. In the early part of the twentieth century, Rice County was covered by a patchwork of small farms that raised a variety of different crops, along with farm animals like chickens, pigs, cows and horses. But as the decades passed, farming changed: Industrial agriculture is characterized by larger farms, mostly devoted to a single "cash" crop--a monoculture. This kind of farming also relies more heavily on machines and chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
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Rice County became a center of industrial agriculture. Farmers devoted their land to corn or soybeans to serve national and international markets. By the 1980s, 160 acres of farmland wasn't enough to support a family; many farmers went bankrupt in Rice County in the farm depression of the 1980s.
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Read about the farm depression of the 1980s.
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Click on the photos below to learn more about the history of each site.
Explore the prairie history by navigating the different periods of the site using the table of contents below.