You must be in a fortunate area of the Great Plains. Many areas of the
Plains are sujbect to drought conditions from time to time.
Of course they are also subject to grasshoppers, fusarium, hail, winds, and
all sorts of other conditions that make for reduced yield.
Nevertheless they do in the long run produce huge crops of corn, grains,
lenitils, sunflowers, etc.etc. In spite of all these problems the Great
Plains have been and will continue to produce large crops of various grains,
etc. This surely is undeniable and perhaps this is what you meant. Those
making pronouncenments about turning the plains back to grasslands are the
ones who havent got a clue about agricultural matters--although more land
may be turned back to pasture etc.simply for economic reasons.. As well as
drought some areas suffer from floods and/or an excess of moisture.
I dont know about North Dakota but next door to me in Saskatchewan the
citizens call their province Next Year Country meaning that farmers always
expect that great crop next year. Similarly re the weather. It is not only
drought.. They say of their climate: We dont have any good weather but we
sure have a great variety of bad weather.
Often drought in one area will be coupled with excess moisture and
floods in other areas and with excellent growing conditions in others. In
this year in
Manitoba and Saskatchewan alone this is the situation. The area I live in
has had plenty of rain and excellent harvest conditions and this is true of
quite a bit of the province but the southeast corner is so wet some areas
could not be seeded. In Saskatchewan the southeast corner has good crops but
most of the rest of the province suffered form serious lack of moisture. So
overall you can still get a large but reduced yield over the whole Canadian
prairies.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
- Original Message -
From: Andrew Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 9:29 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:17523] Re: Re: Re: Garbanzos for peace!
I'm a native of Fargo, North Dakota, and have spent quite a lot of time
on farms in the Great Plains. Do you have a more specific objection to
my remarks? Maybe I made some error.
Andrew Hagen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:48:29 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Obviously, Andrew doesn't live on the prairies or deal with
agricultural issues. Pity.
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba
Most of the Great Plains does not need irrigation to produce crops with
enormous yields, year after year. There are many problems such as
overuse of insecticides and herbicides, and topsoil erosion, but we
shouldn't stop farming the land for those reasons.
Andrew Hagen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
