Ag maps don’t lie , but when I drove across the county about two years ago I mostly saw fields not being used for anything. I suspect what ever the Ag Department program that pays people to keep land unused is at work there as in Tennessee and NC where I have seen the same pattern of fields being deliberately unused.
The number one export of Alabama is no longer timber and timber products, it is now, autos and auto parts.
I often see Alabama's GDP compared to the countries of New Zealand and Iran.