Word: croppings
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...handsome harvest. The corn belt through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa was a healthy bright green, and soybean fields from Minnesota to Missouri sprouted lush and leafy plants. But bounty is a mixed blessing for American farmers, who are mired in a deepening agricultural depression. "This is the crop of our lives," says Roger Ellison, who farms 400 acres of corn and soybeans 45 miles north of Columbia, Mo. "The sad thing is, there's no price in the market...
...report released last week by the Department of Agriculture gave a preview of just how tough the market will be. The survey predicted that the corn crop will increase by 8% from last year, to a record 8.27 billion bu. The soybean harvest is expected to be up 5%, to 1.96 billion bu., while cotton production will rise 6%, to 13.8 million bales. These bumper crops are sure to depress agricultural prices, which are already at extraordinarily low levels. Corn is selling for $2.32 per bu., down from $3.36 in June of 1984. Soy beans, which sold...
...only glimmer of good news was the projection that the wheat crop, while plentiful, will dip by 8%, to 2.38 billion bu., its lowest level in six years. That decline will occur primarily because most wheat farmers harvested 30% fewer acres than last year in return for federal subsidies. Even after this cutback in production, wheat is selling for a mere $2.90 per bu., down sharply from a high of $4.21 in early...
...government withdrew its support after the high-cost farm project had defaulted on its loans and seemed to have little prospect of ever reaching solvency. Critics charged that instead of concentrating on popular products like honeydew melons, peppers and tomatoes, April-Agro grew too many other crops, including plantains and cabbage. Demel counters that he has created a new export market for Puerto Rican produce. In 1979-80, when April-Agro began, the island grew only about 3,600 tons of tomatoes a year, valued at just $1.4 million; hardly any of the crop was fit for export...
That is not your usual local Chinese politics. Sun, 49, with impeccable English and a press-the-flesh attitude, represents a new crop of Chinese leaders who are different from the previous, Soviet-trained generation, which issued edicts from behind a bamboo curtain. Although Sun and his brethren are hardly harbingers of a democratic revolution, they are aware that an increasingly economically savvy populace will demand more accountability. Hence Sun's pledge that his budgets will undergo an anti-corruption audit and his proud declaration that he has personally answered 10,000 e-mails from the public since taking office...