A national tobacco settlement reduced the amount of tobacco sold. Mr. Winkles said. Even so, farmers try to remain optimistic, he said. It's foolish to think that the picture being painted is a rosy one, warned Mr. Brown, whose family has earned a living off the land since before the Civil War. He notes that the Asian economy just can't afford to buy what South Carolina's farmers are producing.
Commodities are at an all-time low.
And hog farmers are going belly-up, once again price takers instead of price makers. Mr. Winkles said. Not so long ago, hogs sold for 55 cents a pound. But there were 14,000 hog growers in the Palmetto State then, compared to 2,500 now. Mr. Winkles also didn't say that South Carolina climatologists predict another extended drought, but the picture will be more clear in February.