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America's 2.4 million farmers are squeezed between rising costs and falling prices. In part, they are the victims of their own remarkable productivity. Last year they turned out record crops of corn (8.2 billion bu.) and wheat (2.8 billion bu.). The 2 billion-bu. soybean harvest was exceeded only in 1979. Oats, barley and grain sorghum also had near record yields, making 1981 probably the most productive year in U.S. farm history. Unfortunately, all that abundance knocked the bottom out of prices. Corn, the nation's biggest cash crop, dropped from $3.60 per bu. in the Chicago...
...business that depends heavily on credit (a typical Kansas wheat farmer borrows about $75,000 a year just to plant and fertilize his crop), the combination of declining income and high interest rates is pushing countless farmers toward bankruptcy. Total farm debt has sharply risen (see chart); it now is about 13 times as high as this year's projected total income. Where farmers normally estimated their annual interest expense at about 11 % of their costs, they now have to set aside more than 20%. Some big operators with expensive equipment are paying as much...
...other ways. Melons age faster at higher temperatures. By picking them before they reach 100°, agronomists find the fruit has a longer shelf life at the grocery store. Working at night also keeps workers cool. Says Bart Fisher, who this year will harvest almost 90% of his melon crop at night: "There is a dramatic improvement in morale when the workers pick at night." After-hours in the melon fields is apparently one night-shift assignment that pleases workers and bosses alike...
...farmers, who have watched grain prices fall sharply because of the recession and an overabundance of commodities, are generally delighted by the influx of Japanese. Nebraska Wheat Grower Jake Sims figures that they have helped add three cents to four cents a bushel to the value of his crop, which currently is worth about $3.70 a bushel. Says he: "I don't care if it's Japanese, or Swedes, or whoever coming in. More competition means a better price, and we can use all the help we can get these days...
...desire" and "a refusal to apologize for outlandish behavior." This spirit, O'Toole argues, informed the mannered and stylized American comedies, musicals and romances of the '30s and '40s, many of which are now considered classics. These days he finds it notably lacking. Of the current crop, Victor/ Victoria perhaps aspires to some of it, though the musical numbers unfortunately miss the oldtime zip and fizz...