The final quote, "... but often, on the ground, it’s one old farmer walking around to collect acorns. ..." reminded me of the the book The Man Who Planted Trees [1] in which a shepard single-handedly reforests a desolate valley by planting acorns and other seedlings.
The book inspired an animated film of the same name [2], which won an Academy Award in 1988. I remember seeing this at an animated film festival about 35 years ago in the Biograph Theater in Washington, DC. Today I rewatched it on YouTube [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees