Every once i while a
new term slips mto the
agricultural vocabulary-it
catches on and becomes part
of the language. Here’s one
that might be worth sharing.
The term is “gram desert.”
If you’ve ever driven
across Kansas m the sum
mer, you know where such
terminology probably
originated. My first contact
with that combination of
words was m a news release
that came across my desk
from University of Illinois
agricultural economist
Folke Dovnng. He says
Illinois has turned into a
grain desert and that’, not
good.
In his thinking, corn and
soybeans, those high value
crops that are so precious to
American agriculture, are
crowding out other economic
opportunities.
The economist points out
that it’s more profitable for
individual farmers to grow
Farm
Talk
Jerry Webb
these crops, but it’s less
economical for society as a
whole to produce nothing but
gram. He thinks the old ways
with some gram crops to
support a strong livestock
enterprise were better-that
livestock farming con
tributes more to the national
product. And in some areas
where vast fertile acres lend
themselves well to grain
production, livestock far
ming is gradually, but
surely, disappearing.
There was a time not too
many years ago when
driving across Illinois, lowa,
Nebraska, Kansas,
Missouri, you found many
livestock operations. In fact,
most farmers fed some hogs
and a few steers and maybe
kept a few beef cows. Or,
they were involved in
dairying or some other
livestock operation.
But with farm-size ex
pansion and an emphasis on
high cost farm machinery,
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 22,1979
many farmers have
preferred to get out of the
livestock business and tear
down old livestock buildings
and fences to make room for
the large tillage and har
vesting machines.
As one Arkansas Delta
farmer told me one time,
“We don’t keep anything
around our place that will
get sick or get out.”
I’m afraid that philosophy
has spread across much of
agriculture, leaving these
gram deserts. And believe
me, they’re not exclusive to
Illinois or Kansas.
As Dovring points out,
livestock production con
sistently produces about 50
per cent more national
product per acre than cash
grain farming. That means
some of the best farmland in
the nation is being used less
intensively. And he says
grain farming employs
fewer people and uses fewer
resources other than land.
And by generating less in
come there’s a negative
influence on the tax base.
When you combine all
those factors you realize the
tremendous stress affecting
some rural communities.
Towns that once supported a
thriving farming enterprise
with a combination of gram
and livestock are now gram
areas only, and that means
the old familiar feed store is
no longer needed.
There are fewer people
living on the land and that
means less business around
the square. As farmers get
bigger, they buy out other
farmers and that reduces the
population even more. Many
of those large farmers go off
to the larger metropolitan
areas to do their shopping, to
buy their farm supplies, and
to sell their grain. And that
spells trouble for those once
thriving communities.
Many of them have
already turned into bedroom
towns or retirement villages,
and others are rapidly
heading that way.
Obviously, our livestock is
getting produced
somewhere, there is no
shortage of it.
If you look at the hog and
poultry production cycles
right now, there is a tem
porary shortage in beef, but
that’s not for lack of far
mers. That’s more a matter
of economics and the time it
takes to expand the nation’s
beef enterprise.
But livestock fanning has
left many of the traditional
areas, moving to the south
and west and concentrating
in states that are not that
well suited to grain
production-states like
Pennsylvania, Virginia,
West Virginia, and the more
rugged parts of Kentucky,
Tennessee, Missouri, and
Arkansas.
The Delmarva peninsula is
blessed with the best of both
worlds. We have our grain
deserts, as anyone who has
driven to the beach in July
knows. And if you fly over
that desert you notice little
blocks where grain doesn’t
grow.
Those agricultural oases
are fully occupied by the
area’s highly concentrated
broiler mdustry-a livestock
industry that requires very
little space, but produces a
lot of income. So in that
sense the area has the best of
both worlds-the strong
com/soybean combination
and the heavy concentration
of livestock in the form of
broiler chickens. The grain
feeds the birds, and the birds
generate a high level of
agricultural and
nonagricultural prosperity.
There is still some
livestock enterprise in the
area. Dairying is quite
important to many farmers
and hog production is a
(Turn to Page 128)
127