Prawns and Tobacco Find a Home Together on Some Farms
05 December 2011
Some of the prawns harvested by the Corbins, a family of tobacco farmers in Tennessee who have gotten into aquaculture
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
A cash crop is a crop grown for money. Four hundred years ago the first cash crop for European
colonists
in North America was tobacco. American Indians were already growing it. Then in sixteen twelve an Englishman named John Rolfe found it would "grow well in Virginia and sell profitably in England," says tobacco.org.
But tobacco kills millions every year. Farmers face increasing government restrictions on tobacco use. They also face less demand from developed countries and more competition from developing ones.
Some farmers now grow niche crops instead of or in addition to tobacco. Niche crops are aimed at a particular market, but choosing what to plant can be difficult. Professor Tony Johnston at Middle Tennessee State University says most tobacco farms are relatively small.
TONY JOHNSTON: "The big issue for all the tobacco growing states is to find those small crops, those niche crops that would provide enough cash flow with fairly similar amounts of area on which you plant your crops."
Some tobacco farmers have chosen to raise prawns, or freshwater
shrimp
. This kind of shellfish is used in different foods and often served cold in what Americans call shrimp cocktails. The British call them
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