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Southeast Colorado | This area has always been native grass...........or wheat farming, or a combination of the two. The wheat economics have all but been destroyed..............so grazing grass is really all that'd be left. I'm not saying that you can't hit successfully profitable row crops.............but if you truly had to stand the years with no or substandard yields, with no govt support, it'd eventually take you out.
And the current structure of govt support definitely sways planting decisions. Disaster payments are tied to historical plantings...........along with future govt programs in general. Any time I've irrigated crops, or even planted dryland strictly for grazing, it has eventually turned into a penalty somewhere down the line, since there's no program for that practice. So even when I know I don't have the water quantity, it's usually best just to keep plowing forward growing what the govt programs are designed to pay out the best on. Without the insurance, or potential upcoming disaster aid package, it for sure would make more sense to grow something besides corn, or wheat, or milo. But as it is...........just best to keep doing the same...........and hope that you actually grow a crop and don't need the govt help. But this "help" has come at the cost of higher land prices.........along with a higher level of entry for anyone new or young without ancestral help.
I realize our desert climate probably makes all this extreme compared to more productive ag country...........but I can't help but deduce that this bleeds into even the better farming areas as well. | |
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Tariffs part deuce
