boom to bust

Thanks for the article, I guess we better slit our wrists, or get about the solution. I sure support the linked conservation measures to get row crop insurance, since we the taxpayers foot some of the the bill. Get rid of the "farmed wetland" theory.
 
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What truly amazes me is when a hunter and sportsman reads something like this, that lays it out there. The writing is on the wall. How when it goes against their political party's view. They can excuse all this information, bury their head in the dirt and dismiss most of what has been proven and said. Then, rather then cross the isle/fence and join forces to help preserve this part of their life. They will let it slip away in the name of being "Bull Headed" and party loyal.

Believing in and supporting conservation, does not make you a tree hugger. To Want to keep habitat, clean water and air doesn't make you a member of some whacked out environmental group. It makes you just a "normal" person who cares about having a place to enjoy your sport, a place for all wildlife to flourish.

How many would like to see the direction in which farming in many states is going, changed to a more wildlife, clean water friendly direction? I'll be the first to say.."ME" If you are one of those people? Then educate yourself on the issues and throw the voting party lines idea out the window. Vote for the person who most represents your views...I do

Didn't mean to make this so political but politics dictates these kind of measure on our sport.

Happy New Years everyone. :cheers:
 
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It's an excellent article and one I will most likely send to all the landowners I send hunters to.

The article looks at many different viewpoints and each makes valid points.

What i like most is the amount of factual data represented. What I would like to see more of is the landscape change data that shows the migration away from native prairie and small grain crops to corn and soybeans. It think this info would be telling and shocking and also support the similarities from IA to SD.

The question I have on one statement about feeding 9 billion in the world by 2050 and it being the burden on the farmers backs. Isn't this and fundamentally incorrect viewpoint. It is a "noble" gesture but is it really a responsibility or just one to justify the great plow up of 2012?

What if corn went to $2 would the farmers still have the feed the world song and continue to produce unprofitable crop on more acres to produce more bushels? I think not. Profit pulls the tractor that pulls the plow.

One other difference I see between IA and SD is that SD's pheasant range is highly commercialized and has been for some time. The big pheasant ranches will most likely continue to manage for birds and crops as such but the mom and pop shops will jettison the birds over more viable cash crops.

I am challenged in the UGUIDE system to be able to charge reasonable rates yet drive enough income thru landwoners in order to offer an incentive to aggressively manage for pheasants and the environments required to sustain them.
 
UGUIDE said:
The question I have on one statement about feeding 9 billion in the world by 2050 and it being the burden on the farmers backs. Isn't this and fundamentally incorrect viewpoint. It is a "noble" gesture but is it really a responsibility or just one to justify the great plow up of 2012?
Click to expand...

Exactly....It's like the guys who shot a 1069 snow geese, then paraded them around on the inter-net. Then when they found out that what they did was not popular. Their best deference was...we are saving the "Tundra"...That's about as far from what drove them to commit such a act as possible. Same thing for these greed farmers..feeding 9 Billion people is as far from what motivates them as one could get. It's all about the money and the hell with the consequences. Live for today and the hell with tomorrow.
 
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Confused???? Were bird numbers really up 18% in 2012???
 
Great article and thanks for sharing. It's interesting though that it doesn't mention ethanol. The reason that farmers won't enroll their land in CRP is because corn is so high. The reason that corn is so high is ethanol. Now the ethanol standards are shifting from E10 to E15, so the problem will get worse. Either the government will have to pay more for CRP or we'll have to pay enough to pheasant hunt to keep farmers from plowing habitat or we'll have no pheasants. Add these costs to the many costs of ethanol.
 
So if I understand this correctly if I farm for maximum profit working the crop insurane angle and farming whatever l can farm, then I am greedy. If I plant food plots, leave sloughs standing for habitat, plant trees and do things that benefit wildlife but charge to hunt then I am greedy. So I guess the only thing for me to do is to plant all of my land to habitat and open it up to public hunting then go get a job or two in town so I can eat and make my payments. At least I won't be greedy.
 
No, Haymaker, keep doing what you are doing with your land, be a steward, of course, but that does not mean pleasing those of us who visit SD once or twice a year and expect miracles. Your family and livelihood is more important than a few pheasants. BTW, for the record, 72 yrs old, have been hunting SD for 50 years as a non resident and non resident landowner, and live for pheasant hunting every year. Happy New Year
 
I live in south central Nebraska, center pivot heaven. Land is selling for $12-$16000 per acre. Pheasant hunting here is over. I understand this is prime farmground, and irrigated.

Iowa: Prime farmground, good annual rainfall. Pheasant hunting is also over in Iowa.

South Dakota: Average farmground, mother nature waters, and she don't water very much some years. South Dakota will be down on pheasants for a few years but will always have more than Nebraska and Iowa. It is over in those two states. Ground is worth way to much to care about pheasants. South Dakota is another story, plowing up grass to plant corn and irrigate makes sense, plowing up grass to plant to corn and hope it rains is nuts. The South Dakota farmers doing this will learn the hard way.
 
NOPLCLKNEB said:
I live in south central Nebraska, center pivot heaven. Land is selling for $12-$16000 per acre. Pheasant hunting here is over. I understand this is prime farmground, and irrigated.

Iowa: Prime farmground, good annual rainfall. Pheasant hunting is also over in Iowa.

South Dakota: Average farmground, mother nature waters, and she don't water very much some years. South Dakota will be down on pheasants for a few years but will always have more than Nebraska and Iowa. It is over in those two states. Ground is worth way to much to care about pheasants. South Dakota is another story, plowing up grass to plant corn and irrigate makes sense, plowing up grass to plant to corn and hope it rains is nuts. The South Dakota farmers doing this will learn the hard way.
Click to expand...

:10sign::thumbsup:
 
"There ain't nothing more powerful than the odor of mendacity". Big Daddy from A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
 
haymaker said:
So if I understand this correctly if I farm for maximum profit working the crop insurane angle and farming whatever l can farm, then I am greedy. If I plant food plots, leave sloughs standing for habitat, plant trees and do things that benefit wildlife but charge to hunt then I am greedy. So I guess the only thing for me to do is to plant all of my land to habitat and open it up to public hunting then go get a job or two in town so I can eat and make my payments. At least I won't be greedy.
Click to expand...

Yes you are correct. When we live in an entitelment society that is what you should do.
 
What I wouldn't do for a whole state of 160 acre farms. Instead of giant profit driven land barons. Maybe if it gets dry enough, long enough....they will go broke. Then the banks will break up the places and sell off 160 acre tracks again at realistic land prices. Everybody wants to live beyond a realistic life stye. A good life with a roof over your head, food in your belly and a few bucks to retire on. Just isn't good enough. Life's never good enough, they will never have enough money or materialistic things. That is what's wrong with this country. That is what's driving the big plowing of 2012. They make a $100,000. They want $500,000. Make $500,000, they want a $1,000, 000 and it never ends. We will greed ourselves right into extinction. Poison the water, air and land. plow it form horizon to horizon until Humans drive all other life into extinction and eventually themselves as well.

I read somewhere on this site. That the aquifer is going dry. Giant operations pumping from 12" to 20" wells irrigating and feeding livestock but they are using water far faster then mother nature is replenishing it. The writing is on the wall but the color of money is blinding them. A hard lesson is coming folks. Then add in the Fracing for oil, poisoning the aquifer that's going on...No regard for the future, just live for today.
 
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I am a former wildlife biologist and the best single item I had to study in college was a book on land ethics. I wish everyone, hunter and farmer alike, would read Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. Whether you are a hunter in Michigan who "owns" a "40", a Texas rancher who "owns" a 10,000 acre spread or a South Dakota farmer who "owns" a bunch of land to grow corn on, we never OWN the land... We are just borrowing it from the next generation. We need to care for it with that perspective.

I am also a staunch conservative and I totally agree with the poster who said that caring about environmental issues doesn't make you a left wing nut or a commie. I just believe that we are an arrogant species and we do a lot of things to our world that are not in our long-term best interest. We DO chase the almighty dollar at the expense of everything else. But we do need to make a living and farmers are no exception. I do not in any way think that "profit" is a bad word. However, the problem with farming and the profitability of farming is not that they don't farm enough acres, it's in large part the government subsidies they are mandated/enticed/convinced to follow.

We are hearing now of the "milk cliff" along with the fiscal cliff, that milk prices will go up to $7+ a gallon. Guess what? That is probably what they should be because subsidies have kept mile prices artificially low for a long time. Milk prices haven't risen hardly at all since about 1978 and the profits of dairy producers have followed. It is not a free enterprise supply/demand system at all. If it were, we wouldn't have needed government "food pyramid" to tell us to eat all that grain so farmers could sell the over abundance they were producing.

Ms. Richardson (in the article) is pretty single-minded. She states we have to find a balance between feeding the world (quite an arrogant statement in itself!) and 'recreation', showing her total disregard for the fact that wildlife populations (not just hunting "recreation") are an indicator of a healthy landscape. Row crop from horizon to horizon is not the indicator of a healthy landscape...it is an indicator of an extremely inefficient (over the long-term) use of land to feed people. Or perhaps, given our current obesity rates, a sign we are producing too much food. Funny how much corn is used to produce addictive junk food that keep us coming back for more so more and more profits can be made...so much for "feeding the world".

The earth doesn't care if we're here or not. It will go on as long as it is supposed to go on and time will eventually heal the scars of human existence. However, OUR quality of life is determined by what we do and how we use the land. I think it is best for everyone to take a long term view.

I'll get down now...happy New Year everyone!
 
marshrat said:
I am a former wildlife biologist and the best single item I had to study in college was a book on land ethics. I wish everyone, hunter and farmer alike, would read Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. Whether you are a hunter in Michigan who "owns" a "40", a Texas rancher who "owns" a 10,000 acre spread or a South Dakota farmer who "owns" a bunch of land to grow corn on, we never OWN the land... We are just borrowing it from the next generation. We need to care for it with that perspective.

I am also a staunch conservative and I totally agree with the poster who said that caring about environmental issues doesn't make you a left wing nut or a commie. I just believe that we are an arrogant species and we do a lot of things to our world that are not in our long-term best interest. We DO chase the almighty dollar at the expense of everything else. But we do need to make a living and farmers are no exception. I do not in any way think that "profit" is a bad word. However, the problem with farming and the profitability of farming is not that they don't farm enough acres, it's in large part the government subsidies they are mandated/enticed/convinced to follow.

We are hearing now of the "milk cliff" along with the fiscal cliff, that milk prices will go up to $7+ a gallon. Guess what? That is probably what they should be because subsidies have kept mile prices artificially low for a long time. Milk prices haven't risen hardly at all since about 1978 and the profits of dairy producers have followed. It is not a free enterprise supply/demand system at all. If it were, we wouldn't have needed government "food pyramid" to tell us to eat all that grain so farmers could sell the over abundance they were producing.

Ms. Richardson (in the article) is pretty single-minded. She states we have to find a balance between feeding the world (quite an arrogant statement in itself!) and 'recreation', showing her total disregard for the fact that wildlife populations (not just hunting "recreation") are an indicator of a healthy landscape. Row crop from horizon to horizon is not the indicator of a healthy landscape...it is an indicator of an extremely inefficient (over the long-term) use of land to feed people. Or perhaps, given our current obesity rates, a sign we are producing too much food. Funny how much corn is used to produce addictive junk food that keep us coming back for more so more and more profits can be made...so much for "feeding the world".

The earth doesn't care if we're here or not. It will go on as long as it is supposed to go on and time will eventually heal the scars of human existence. However, OUR quality of life is determined by what we do and how we use the land. I think it is best for everyone to take a long term view.

I'll get down now...happy New Year everyone!
Click to expand...

:10sign::thumbsup:
 
marshrat said:
However, the problem with farming and the profitability of farming is not that they don't farm enough acres, it's in large part the government subsidies they are mandated/enticed/convinced to follow.
!
Click to expand...

What subsidies specifically are these? I'd like to know so I can sign up.
 
http://farm.ewg.org/

South Dakota Summary Information
Crop Insurance is becoming more important to farmers than Direct Payments
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
$10.4 billion in subsidies 1995-2011.
$5.11 billion in commodity subsidies.
$2.79 billion in crop insurance subsidies.
$1.32 billion in conservation subsidies.
$1.16 billion in disaster subsidies.
South Dakota ranking: 9 of 50 States
26 percent of farms in South Dakota did not collect subsidy payments - according to USDA.
Ten percent collected 62 percent of all subsidies.
Amounting to $4.71 billion over 17 years.
Top 10%: $37,375 average per year between 1995 and 2011.
Bottom 80%: $1,383 average per year between 1995 and 2011.


Top programs in South Dakota, 1995-2011:

Years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,2008,2009**, 2010**, 2011**, 1995-2011**
Rank Program
(click for top recipients, payment concentration and regional rankings) Number of Recipients
1995-2011 Subsidy Total
1995-2011
1 Corn Subsidies**
54,437** $3,711,884,724
2 Wheat Subsidies**
41,625** $1,649,173,231
3 Soybean Subsidies**
37,300** $1,627,858,843
4 Disaster Payments
43,966 $1,164,037,809
5 Conservation Reserve Program
30,272 $1,157,429,130
6 Livestock Subsidies
26,319** $256,479,926
7 Sunflower Subsidies**
9,806** $252,707,237
8 Sorghum Subsidies**
15,416** $121,693,593
9 Barley Subsidies**
26,349** $96,109,723
10 Env. Quality Incentive Program
4,114 $93,105,804
** Crop totals are an estimate. In the data received by EWG for 2009-2011, USDA does not differentiate Direct Payments or Counter-Cyclical Payments by crop as in previous years. EWG allocated the region's Direct Payments by crop for the 2009-2011 calendar year using the proportion of that crop's Direct Payments in 2008. Number of recipients receiving Direct Payments for that crop were not estimated. Due to the way Counter Cyclical Payments are made - EWG was not able to allocate Counter Cyclical Payments to crops. Also included in the crop totals are the crop insurance premiums as reported by the USDA Risk Management Agency for that crop. The crop insurance premium is the amount of money that is calculated by USDA to make the program actuarially sound. Crop insurance premium subsidies are available at the county, state and national level.
Note: The information on conservation spending for 2011 is incomplete due to missing data from USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service. In addition some payments made in 2010 were not assigned to recipients in the data received from NRCS. Those payments are also not included.

The information provided for the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) provides an inaccurate picture of how WRP payments are distributed. USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service uses title companies as intermediaries to finalize wetlands easements under the Wetlands Reserve Program. As a result, the data provided to us shows large sums of money going to these title companies. In reality, the payments are ultimately distributed to landowners participating in the WRP.

Unfortunately, NRCS has not provided the data to show where these farms and wetlands are located or which farmers or landowners are enrolling in the program, so EWG is unable to allocate these large sums of money to individuals beyond the title companies. Therefore, these companies skew the conservation rankings and payment concentration, which EWG cannot avoid unless and until NRCS makes available the additional farm attribution data. Therefore, we have not included WRP payments in the 2011 data update.

We have separated data on farm commodity, disaster and conservation payments in order to provide a more accurate picture of top recipients and concentration of payments among the three main categories of USDA programs.

Finally, EWG works hard to ensure the accuracy of the information it provides through its products and services, but obtains data for the Farm Subsidy Database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Therefore, EWG cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information USDA provides or any analysis based thereon. If you find an error or discrepancy on the site, please contact your local USDA Farm Service Agency office to check its records before contacting EWG.
 
For Iowa:


Iowa Summary Information
Crop Insurance is becoming more important to farmers than Direct Payments
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
$23.6 billion in subsidies 1995-2011.
$15.9 billion in commodity subsidies.
$3.47 billion in crop insurance subsidies.
$3.63 billion in conservation subsidies.
$587 million in disaster subsidies.
Iowa ranking: 2 of 50 States
19 percent of farms in Iowa did not collect subsidy payments - according to USDA.
Ten percent collected 58 percent of all subsidies.
Amounting to $11.8 billion over 17 years.
Top 10%: $33,626 average per year between 1995 and 2011.
Bottom 80%: $1,553 average per year between 1995 and 2011.



Top programs in Iowa, 1995-2011:

Years: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,2008,2009**, 2010**, 2011**, 1995-2011**
Rank Program
(click for top recipients, payment concentration and regional rankings) Number of Recipients
1995-2011 Subsidy Total
1995-2011
1 Corn Subsidies**
173,557** $14,946,196,789
2 Soybean Subsidies**
128,327** $4,001,916,808
3 Conservation Reserve Program
101,420 $3,319,948,534
4 Disaster Payments
62,965 $586,729,955
5 Dairy Program Subsidies
6,693** $158,268,200
6 Env. Quality Incentive Program
11,165 $126,629,110
7 Livestock Subsidies
35,722** $92,117,605
8 Wetlands Reserve Program
558 $46,910,335
9 Wheat Subsidies**
19,136** $28,376,843
10 Oat Subsidies**
 
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