More acres farmed in 1980 than today

UGUIDE

UGUIDE

Active member
Watching AG PHD and according to the Hefty Brothers we are farming fewer acres today than in 1980. Something like 285 million in 1908 vs. 335 million today.

This would be consistent with the SD Game and Fish charts showing net zero set aside acres back then.

sdbirdhistory_zps07141707.png
 
Interesting, now post the bird counts for the 1980's and lets see how good or bad pheasant hunting was back then.
 
onpoint said:
Interesting, now post the bird counts for the 1980's and lets see how good or bad pheasant hunting was back then.
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I did Chuck. They are right in the chart. Some of the lowest on record.

You can see on the chart where there were no set aside acres at all during that time.

While I certainly don't agree with the Hefty's on all they are selling they make a decent point here on farmed acres.
 
UGUIDE said:
I did Chuck. They are right in the chart. Some of the lowest on record.

You can see on the chart where there were no set aside acres at all during that time.

While I certainly don't agree with the Hefty's on all they are selling they make a decent point here on farmed acres.
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They may be right, but their point today is to tile and farm as many acres as possible. They are trying to justify their position and silence their critics.
I was around in the '80s, infact I was in my prime, the 30s if you will. The soil bank was all gone and CRP just came on in the late '80s. It was tough hunting but I did it and had two kids that wanted to go. Things were not too bad west of Mitchell and all along the Missouri River corrridor. Hunted waterfowl a little more.
There are some differences from what's going on now. They farm to the side of the road many places and there is no ditch. Herbicdes and corn genetics leave nothing beneath the canopy. We did have slough s in the '80s. After the drought, they are now all cut ,burned and plowed. With abundant moisture however, they will be back.
 
And everything is being cut down to the ground at harvest leaving little more than acres and acres of old roots and mud.


"…just in the last 5 years we've lost almost 400,000 acres of native prairie…."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ9D1S8sm7w

Allot of farm acres have also been sold to real estate developers since 1980. If AG folks are really serious about the loss of farm acres they'd willingly put the brakes on selling off farmland to developers. I doubt we'll see that happen any time soon.

The mid 80's are when the I last saw and hunted wild birds in northeast Ohio. I've haven't seen or heard verifiable reports of any since.

Here in northeast Ohio where sprawl is pretty rampant I've heard reports that it's pretty common for Menonite farmers to sell off their farm land at premium prices to real estate developers and use the profits to move west and buy much larger amounts of acreage to farm. I've heard some reports that Iowa was a common destination.



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