Word: harvests
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Across the farm belt last week, it was clear that another bumper crop is on the way. In Illinois, the corn is already seven feet high in spots and not close to topping out. Some corn is tasseling weeks ahead of schedule, and an early harvest is in prospect. Soybeans have also benefited from perfect weather; many plants are waist high and flowering ahead of time. Good, dry planting weather came early this year across Iowa and Nebraska, and even scattered flooding has not hurt the promise of a bountiful harvest. Elsewhere in the Midwest, it is much the same...
While farmers fret about how to store the huge harvest, much tougher questions will loom as unavoidably as tarpaulin-covered mountains of wheat. The unsentimental truth is that America's farm industry, once a source of pride and power, has become an economic burden. Because so many other countries have improved their agricultural output, maintaining America's vast farming capacity is now a costly exercise in excess. During fiscal 1986 the expense to taxpayers for supporting farm programs will reach, according to the Government's estimates, $24 billion -- a 36% increase over last year. As exports shrivel and imports increase...
Many historians believe that Stalin engineered a famine in 1933 in an attempt to break the back-bone of the nationalist-minded Ukrainian peasantry, causing the death of seven million villagers. Despite a relatively normal harvest in Ukraine--considered the Soviet Union's bread-basket--Soviet officials ignored signs of mass starvation, scholars say, requiring nearly all foodstuffs to be exported outside of the republic...
...black market in Colorado's renowned aspens. After the winter's last snowfall, but while the aspens are still dormant, the bandits uproot them and sell them to nurseries and landscapers for between $10 and $15 apiece, or door to door for up to $45. An industrious team can harvest as many as 30,000 saplings in a season. Who wants them? Says Forest Service Spokesman Hank Deutsch: "I guess a clump of aspen is a desirable attraction for people's yards...
...government of the neighboring Dominican Republic paid the President $2 million a year to provide Haitian laborers for the annual sugarcane harvest. The first post-Duvalier government vowed to confiscate the dictator's fortune, but did nothing. It also promised to return the $2 million kickback received this year to Santo Domingo...