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Status:
"The great northern Summer has arrived!"
(set 20 days ago)
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
13,625 posts, read 15,503,325 times
Reputation: 6388
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCentralNEGuy
What's wrong with the High Plains, McCook is actually a fairly big sized town for out this way (or dare I say city)? I know you like to talk about the economic/population decline of the Plains but was wondering if you had anything positive to say about it.
Yes, most people are employed or they move to a different place My prime dislike of the High Plains is climate. I just don't like the constant dryness, winds, and brown vegetation.
Yes, most people are employed or they move to a different place My prime dislike of the High Plains is climate. I just don't like the constant dryness, winds, and brown vegetation.
Well Bigg Mann was saying there are a number of jobs in his area so if you have the skills then you could move. The weather, climate, lack of trees, distance from major population centers is not for everyone. Central NE is better on the tree department than further west. Subzero winters with high winds, 100 degree summers with high humidity, the climate is definitely not a draw but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and at least we have something to brag about!
Yes, most people are employed or they move to a different place My prime dislike of the High Plains is climate. I just don't like the constant dryness, winds, and brown vegetation.
OTOH, there are people (like me) who prefer to have 9 months of winter, blizzards, outrageous thunderstorms, tornadoes, and green hills, tumbling ice-cold rivers, instead of 100 degrees and 100% humidity, bugs, snakes, and mountains of kudzu for 9 months. Dif'rent strokes.
OTOH, there are people (like me) who prefer to have 9 months of winter, blizzards, outrageous thunderstorms, tornadoes, and green hills, tumbling ice-cold rivers, instead of 100 degrees and 100% humidity, bugs, snakes, and mountains of kudzu for 9 months. Dif'rent strokes.
Granny what do you think about the South and agriculture? I don't think they do a whole lot of it other than peaches and peanuts and some cotton in different places but most of the landscape looks like pine trees that is completely unused for farming. Out here is REAL farm and ranch country!
Status:
"The great northern Summer has arrived!"
(set 20 days ago)
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
13,625 posts, read 15,503,325 times
Reputation: 6388
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCentralNEGuy
Granny what do you think about the South and agriculture? I don't think they do a whole lot of it other than peaches and peanuts and some cotton in different places but most of the landscape looks like pine trees that is completely unused for farming. Out here is REAL farm and ranch country!
They have a name for that, silviculture. Forestry and wood products industries are just as important as agricultural industries in some parts of the country. In terms of agriculture, the vast majority of land in the Midwest core is not irrigated. In the Great Plains West of Nebraska a big percentage of land is irrigated.
SCentralNEGuy; the South used to be extremely crop-heavy; as teens we picked tomatoes on a farm on the island for daily cash. Rice used to be the southern part of the State's cash crop; lots of low-lying flooding areas there (and levies to control the waters for rice growing were historically invented there). Tea is still a cash crop along the coast, and much of Beaufort and Hampton Counties are farmland still - collards and greens in the winter, watermelon, corn and tomatoes in the summer, pumpkins, pecans, and more greens in the fall. Most farms are hidden from view down country roads or on the peninsulas and islands that dot the coast; much of the produce was shipped out. Cotton and peaches were/are more of a midstate crop.
But in the 1980s, the SC Legislature passed a bill to "help" farmers - ag property was taxed at $1.89 an acre, no more. So a lot of corporations like Westvaco and Union-Camp bought up the farmland and planted trees for wood pulp and paper mills. Hence the "slash pine" trees. Corporations were making millions and paying next to nothing in taxes - until China got into the paper manufacturing business, and the 'tree corporations' sold out or developed their properties for construction of McMansions and subdivisions. With the loss of cropland, cheap (South American and overseas) produce was imported instead of locally grown and shipped out; and the previous loss of the textile industry (based on the cotton crop), the South started catering to the only buyers they had left - the vacationers and retirees, the "snowbirds" and "halfbacks" (those who didin't want to live in FL any more and moved - half-back - to SC and NC), and SC became solely dependent on service industries. When the housing bubble collapsed, the service industries - every job from lawyers to waitresses took a hit, exacerbated by the thousands of illegals who had initially gone to SC for the crop harvests, then the construction work, and who now fill most of the menial service jobs.
Remember back when "soybean oil" was the "new butter", so much better for you than corn or any other oils? I worked on a 15,000 acre farm in Ohio for a time; it was irrigated - but we didn't just use the big "sprinklers", we used conduit, tile, and piping. We raised 1,000 acres of corn, but the big cash crop was soybeans. The co-op loaded all of our and our neighbors' produce onto trucks, then onto ships,. took them out past the international water division - then turned the ships around and sold it for twice the price as "imported".
It's true; much of the property out here is larger not only in size but in productivity; there's no way a SC tomato farm of a few thousand acres can fiscally compete with the large expanse of hectares of corn here. Of course, from what I've been given to understand, the ethanol boom and its government subsidies are causing a lot of folks who never considered ag before to indulge in buying acreage - much as Westvaco and Union-Camp did. I can see a boom-bust coming in the corn industry just as it came in the slash-pine industry - but I don't foresee a whole lot of 'snowbirds' heading here to retire. So it's anyone's guess what that progression will be... of course, with China buying up all of the public transportation, water and sewer, and even power plants all across the country, and with their billions of people to feed, plus the Chinese negotiating to build a self-contained city in the midle of Idaho, one might think it would be prudent to learn to speak Mandarin.
IMHO - Nebraskan ag folks need to realize that these wide expanses of productive land may be, in the near future, more valuable than gold - even without the ethanol subsidies.
<I am now removing my 'lobbyist-political-maven-land-planner' hats> Really, I'm just a little old lady on a handful of acres with a few cows, and chickens, and a cute little garden. Really.
SCentralNEGuy; the South used to be extremely crop-heavy; as teens we picked tomatoes on a farm on the island for daily cash. Rice used to be the southern part of the State's cash crop; lots of low-lying flooding areas there (and levies to control the waters for rice growing were historically invented there). Tea is still a cash crop along the coast, and much of Beaufort and Hampton Counties are farmland still - collards and greens in the winter, watermelon, corn and tomatoes in the summer, pumpkins, pecans, and more greens in the fall. Most farms are hidden from view down country roads or on the peninsulas and islands that dot the coast; much of the produce was shipped out. Cotton and peaches were/are more of a midstate crop.
But in the 1980s, the SC Legislature passed a bill to "help" farmers - ag property was taxed at $1.89 an acre, no more. So a lot of corporations like Westvaco and Union-Camp bought up the farmland and planted trees for wood pulp and paper mills. Hence the "slash pine" trees. Corporations were making millions and paying next to nothing in taxes - until China got into the paper manufacturing business, and the 'tree corporations' sold out or developed their properties for construction of McMansions and subdivisions. With the loss of cropland, cheap (South American and overseas) produce was imported instead of locally grown and shipped out; and the previous loss of the textile industry (based on the cotton crop), the South started catering to the only buyers they had left - the vacationers and retirees, the "snowbirds" and "halfbacks" (those who didin't want to live in FL any more and moved - half-back - to SC and NC), and SC became solely dependent on service industries. When the housing bubble collapsed, the service industries - every job from lawyers to waitresses took a hit, exacerbated by the thousands of illegals who had initially gone to SC for the crop harvests, then the construction work, and who now fill most of the menial service jobs.
Remember back when "soybean oil" was the "new butter", so much better for you than corn or any other oils? I worked on a 15,000 acre farm in Ohio for a time; it was irrigated - but we didn't just use the big "sprinklers", we used conduit, tile, and piping. We raised 1,000 acres of corn, but the big cash crop was soybeans. The co-op loaded all of our and our neighbors' produce onto trucks, then onto ships,. took them out past the international water division - then turned the ships around and sold it for twice the price as "imported".
It's true; much of the property out here is larger not only in size but in productivity; there's no way a SC tomato farm of a few thousand acres can fiscally compete with the large expanse of hectares of corn here. Of course, from what I've been given to understand, the ethanol boom and its government subsidies are causing a lot of folks who never considered ag before to indulge in buying acreage - much as Westvaco and Union-Camp did. I can see a boom-bust coming in the corn industry just as it came in the slash-pine industry - but I don't foresee a whole lot of 'snowbirds' heading here to retire. So it's anyone's guess what that progression will be... of course, with China buying up all of the public transportation, water and sewer, and even power plants all across the country, and with their billions of people to feed, plus the Chinese negotiating to build a self-contained city in the midle of Idaho, one might think it would be prudent to learn to speak Mandarin.
IMHO - Nebraskan ag folks need to realize that these wide expanses of productive land may be, in the near future, more valuable than gold - even without the ethanol subsidies.
<I am now removing my 'lobbyist-political-maven-land-planner' hats> Really, I'm just a little old lady on a handful of acres with a few cows, and chickens, and a cute little garden. Really.
Thanks Granny that was a really good description of what happened down there and it is really quite sad. As for boom and bust with the corn industry a lot of people are being a lot more conservative than before because they remember well what happened in the 80s. Down my way we see outside investors buying up land (but most of the land is being held on to right now very little of it is for sale) for inflated prices or land being bought in relatively small tracts by big family farm operators who can leverage it against current farmland. We haven't seen foreign investors yet as you said you've seen in Cherry County. So if there is a bust it won't be a huge deal for the locals. In general from what I've seen Nebraska seems to be a lot more stable, prudent, and conservative state hence we rarely get into as much trouble as other states.
I would argue our economic situation determines our politics. Not vice versa.
You may be right to a small extent Fred, but I can assure you the inverse has a much bigger effect. Politics influence policy, policies influence business decisions and business decisions influence employment. I can tell you, as a business owner and employer politics is a huge factor.
Talk to other business owners / employers and ask them what the biggest obstacle is in operating a successful and thriving business. I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of them with tell you just what I’m telling you - that government intervention, excessive regulation and oppressive taxes and fees rank toward the top.
Are there any other business owners / employers that can respond here?
In general from what I've seen Nebraska seems to be a lot more stable, prudent, and conservative state hence we rarely get into as much trouble as other states.
I can tell you, as a business owner and employer politics is a huge factor.
Talk to other business owners / employers and ask them what the biggest obstacle is in operating a successful and thriving business. I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of them with tell you just what I’m telling you - that government intervention, excessive regulation and oppressive taxes and fees rank toward the top.
Are there any other business owners / employers that can respond here?
BTW, I'm self-employed.
So far as my point, you just made it for me.
You spoke of your business (economics) first and foremost. And how your politics are influenced by your occupation. (Ie, who and what you vote for.)
Were it the converse, which is what you've been trying to say, you would have said that the fact that you're a Democrat or Republican determines how you operate your business...
But you didn't.
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My prime dislike of the High Plains is climate. I just don't like the constant dryness, winds, and brown vegetation.
Dif'rent strokes.
A "Natural" Progression?
So it's anyone's guess what that progression will be... of course, with China buying up all of the public transportation, water and sewer, and even power plants all across the country, and with their billions of people to feed, plus the Chinese negotiating to build a self-contained city in the midle of Idaho, one might think it would be prudent to learn to speak Mandarin. 
