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Re: [OM] mini-day-out for Zuikoholics

Subject: Re: [OM] mini-day-out for Zuikoholics
From: AG Schnozz <agschnozz@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 09:03:12 -0700 (PDT)
I'm just a bit confused about that old Christmas in Summer
thing.

As far as sheep go, I can't get good lamb here in Iowa.  There
is a ton of sheep raising around here, but 99.90f them get
shipped off to the east/west coast or exported.  Come to think
of it, 99.90f everything raised/grown in Iowa, including
people go elsewhere.

Can you say "population decline"?  There are only a handful of
locations in the state that have ANY form of population growth. 
Rural Iowa is dying fast.  It manafests itself in the small
towns.  Towns that used to have a few stores, some churches, a
gas station or two and a watering hole now have nothing.  Once
the watering hole dries up, it's all over.

Is Iowa turning to weeds?  Nope.  A generation ago, a farmer
family could survive on 500 acres.  Not anymore.  Farms in this
area now average 2000 acres.  The true "agribusinessmen"
(farming is a business, not a lifestyle) regularily run 6000
acres.  This isn't podunk farming either.  We're talking 180
bushel of corn per acre in a drought.  250-280 bushel per acre
in a good year.  Imagine this:  the largest combine/harvester
available doesn't even hold 600 bushel.  It takes an army of
trucks to support just one harvester.  And those new harvesters
are FAST!  Of course, they also run $300,000 each!

It takes a whole lot less farmers today than a generation ago.

This next week, I'm going to photograph my jeep next to a wagon
used to transport corn off of the field and to waiting trucks. 
It holds something like 4000 bushel.  It is huge.  The tires are
around 10 feet (3 meters) tall.  Takes up two entire lanes of a
road.  The unloading chute (powered by the PTO) is almost
two-feet in diameter.  It can unload in about 60 seconds. 
That's a good thing, since the harvestor will fill it's own 500
bushel bin in three minutes and needs these wagons to be hoofing
it back and forth.

Sure, there is other things in Iowa besides corn and soybeans. 
Des Moines is a big insurance/finance city.  Cedar Rapids has
electronics, Iowa City and Ames have research.  It would suprise
you of the things that come from Iowa.

Still, everybody is tuned into the weather every night and
following pork-belly futures is one of those things that even
the children do.

No wonder everybody moves away to Chicago and Denver.

AG-Schnozz

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