Word: wheats
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Endlessly westward from the 97th meridian stretch the Great Plains of the state of North Dakota, fertile in places, arid in others, baked by the summer sun and blown by the winter wind. Here wheat is grown, hard red and durum, and herds of beef cattle meander across far-ranging pastures, silhouetted against low horizons; here more than 40,000 shining combines work 63,000 well-kept farms. The farmers are apt to feel sensitive when casual visitors from lusher and more verdant places refer to their hard-worked land as a desert...
...first comprehensive estimate of this year's farm crop was announced last week by the Department of Agriculture with a note of dismay. Though wheat, cotton and corn acreage had been cut in the hope of trimming some 5% from the huge U.S. farm surplus, this year's crop is still expected to be the second biggest in history, and the biggest since record 1948. Most farmers have lived up to their word, cut their acreage of "basic" crops as directed. But farmers, who have seen their products decline 23.5% in price in four years...
...prospect of the big harvest, prices went down. Cotton sold for about 34? a lb., 11? less than it was four years ago, while wheat sold for less than $2.15 a bushel, off more than 85? in some eight years. Last year, even with parts of the nation suffering from a drought, the Department of Agriculture had to buy $7,198,000,000 worth of surplus commodities under the price-support program. This year, it looked as if the bill would be still higher...
...Canada, as in the U.S., government farm price-support programs have piled up mountains of butter and wheat. Last week Canada arranged two neat deals to sell part of the worrisome surplus behind the Iron Curtain for cash. To Red-run Czechoslovakia will go 300,000 lbs. of butter at 42½? a lb.-15½? less than the government's own purchasing price. For $19 million, grain-hungry Poland will get 10 million bu. of low-grade wheat...
...crop, Secretary Benson cut the proposed support price again, to reduce production further. In last week's election, farmers were faced with a hard choice: to accept the quota restrictions and a support price of $1.81 a bushel for their wheat (76% of parity), or to reject the quotas and sell all they can at whatever price the market would bring. Without quotas, the supported price would be only $1.19 a bushel and to get that, farmers still would have to accept acreage restrictions. "It's not too good a choice," said South Dakota's Senator Francis...