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Article: Still top dog: agriculture is still Mississippi's biggest business.(Focus)
- Article from:
- The Mississippi Business Journal
- Article date:
- June 29, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Dolan Media Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Any discussion about big business in Mississippi has to start with agriculture. It is the top industry in the state, ringing at $6.3 billion. The state's 41,700 farms cover 11 million acres, and nearly one in every three Mississippi workers is employed in the agriculture sector.
The last few years have not been kind to farmers. Caught in the squeeze of soft market prices and high input costs, row croppers and meat producers alike have struggled to stay out of the red.
"The last five years have been a tough a stretch as farmers have ever faced," said Andy Prosser, director of marketing development at the Mississippi ...