NPR's John McChesney returns to the area where his family farmed for many generations in Saline County, Missouri. It's a rich agricultural region, surrounded on two sides by the Missouri River. He compares the way of life he knew as a boy with some of the new farmers. He finds that in some ways the farmers' modern high-tech methods are their own worst enemies: greater yield means flat prices. And in hog farming, the almost-automated life of the modern hog seems immoral to some old-timers who had more affection for their animals.
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