Word: wheats
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Across America last week, the nation's farm land had a bizarre new look. In Kansas, large brown patches of stubble-studded earth interrupt shimmering golden carpets of ripening winter wheat. In Nebraska, idle center-pivot sprinklers stand like outsize scarecrows over many once verdant cornfields. In California, more than half of the acreage normally devoted to rice lies uncultivated. The cause of the crop cutback is not drought or disaster but a new federal program that rewards farmers, partly in cash and partly in grain and cotton, for taking large tracts of land out of production. Called payment...
...prompted farmers to remove from production 82.3 million acres of wheat, corn, sorghum, cotton, barley, oats and rice, amounting to 36% of all eligible crop land. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that farmers planted only 60.1 million acres of one major crop, corn, down 27% from last year and the lowest level since 1878. Even with the acreage reductions, however, the nation's winter-wheat crop, planted last September and now in the midst of being harvested, is estimated at 1.94 billion bu., the third best crop ever and down only 8% from last year. Farmers...
...result, wheat stockpiles are actually expected to grow this year. For every other commodity, however, PIK appears to be succeeding in drawing down the enormous surpluses. The USDA predicts that the unsold carryover of feed grains, mostly corn, may dwindle from 3.4 billion bu. to 2 billion bu. by the end of the year, a reduction of about 40%. Rice stocks are expected to be cut by almost half, from 68.2 million cwt. (hundredweight) to 36.3 million cwt. "Without PIK, we would have had a market glut like we've never seen," says Agricultural Economist Barry Flinchbaugh of Kansas...
When farmers signed up for PIK last spring, they received vouchers redeemable at harvest time for grain from Government-controlled storage. The amount varied from 80% (in the case of corn) to 95% (in the case of wheat) of what they would normally produce on their idled plots. After redeeming the vouchers, the farmers are free to sell the gratis grain or use it as livestock feed. "PIK sure looked sweet to me," says Kyle Bauer, who idled 700 acres of his 1,700-acre farm in northeastern Kansas. "I can give my ground a rest and still...
...publisher of the Times, which is the sole newspaper in Waitsburg (pop. 1,035), located in southeastern Washington. Townsfolk are neither impressed nor worried by the unusual situation. Says Banker Ken Miller: "It's easy for Tom. His newspaper is only two doors down from town hall." Explains Wheat Farmer Howard Smith: "It was his turn to be mayor...