Could Mississippi farmers be the next oil sheiks?

It’s a possibility if more energy sources switch from gas to switchgrass

If David Waide’s vision comes true, the United States will no longer be dependent on Arab oil and, instead, all that money will be going into the pockets of Mississippi’s farmers.
Waide, as president of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation, has a front row seat to our state’s agricultural sector. He’s seen the tail end of the enormous transition from the family farm to agribusiness.

At the start of the last century, 70 percent of Mississippi families farmed. Today, only three percent of the work force is engaged solely in agriculture. I suspect that there are a lot more Mississippians who work other jobs but still have a hand in the family farm or tree farm, so the three percent figure may be deceptively low.

Biloxi Sun-Herald