home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Loadstar 226
/
226.d81
/
m.h2
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
2022-08-26
|
3KB
|
130 lines
u<t0>
The loaded trucks rush to the
farmer's storage bins or to the local
grain elevator to dump their load.
Time is critical. Harvest comes
during thunderstorm season. Wet fields
must wait. Hail or flood could consume
the years work.
<l1truck4.shp>
<w>
<d1>
<w>
<t0>
At the elevator, the farmer may
sell his wheat immediately, or pay the
elevator to store the grain -- waiting
for a better price.
But the exponential increase of
productivity has kept the price per
bushel approximately the same for 50
years, despite a 10-times inflation in
the rest of the economy. Wheat sells
today for the same $2.00 to $2.75 a
bushel as it did in the early 1950's.
As one farmer put it, "We have gone
from being a business, to being
endangered, to being a joke." Today,
in eastern Colorado, a 4000 acre wheat
farm is not unusual. Yields range from
15 to 50 bushels per acre. You do the
math.
<l1truck3.shp>
<w>
<d1>
<w>
<t0>
When I was a kid, elevators (and my
dad's seed processing facility) used
chains and a platform under the front
wheels of a truck to tilt it up and
dump the load.
Today, trucks employ hydraulic
lifts to tip up the bed.
During the months preceeding
harvest, farmers moan about the
disasters that have destroyed their
crop: wind, hail, bugs, blight,
drought. However, after the grain is
in, these same farmers are strangely
quiet about their production. If one
did well, one does not brag. If not,
one does not complain.
<l1truck1m.shp>
<w>
<d1>
<w>
<t0>
The grain flows into the pit to be
lifted by augers and conveyers to fill
the huge bins.
Of the $1 you spend on a loaf of
white or wheat bread, a nickel
actually gets to the farmer. Out of
that nickel comes all the expenses and
investment required to produce bread
for the nation.
Farmers traditionally do not
support gambling laws. Why should
they? They already bury everything
they have, on the chance that this
year will not be a tragedy.
Luck be a LADY!
<l1wheat1.shp>
<w>
<d1>
<w>
<t0>
The American prairie is dotted with
these "Cathedrals of the Plains," the
tallest structures in thousands of
small, rural towns. Life and the
economy revolve around harvest and the
public schools. Ancillary businesses
exist only in proportion to the
population and distance from the
County Seat WalMart.
And yet, these tiny hamlets
continue to collect the harvest and
transport grain to the markets and
mouths of the world.
O beautiful for spacious skies
And amber waves of grain...
<l1elevator1m.shp>
<w>
<d1>
<w>
<e>