East Central South Dakota | Jon, my observation from last year's road trip, confirms everything you have said. We bought a Mack truck at Bruckners in Oklahoma City last year and to avoid scales we came home straight on HYW 281 all the way home. The rural areas in Kansas and Oklahoma are much different than they are in the Dakotas into Minnesota. Signs of rural decay and poverty are very easily seen. As soon as you cross into Nebraska it starts getting better. South Dakota has boomed in agriculture the last 15 years and you can see it everywhere you look, and we don't raise wheat anymore. New houses, shops, grain bins and shiny paint. There is a lot more at work in South Dakota's prosperity besides not planting wheat, but it is a component. Wheat has been a price dog for decades and yielding more bushels isn't the pathway to prosperity. Cattle may be the way to better revenue streams for you. Governmental support and policy are keeping a lot of ground in wheat where it should be in grass for cattle. The market took advantage of the cattle producer for decades; people got out of ranching and now look at where cattle price is. Apologies to anyone I have offended---just an honest report of what I saw.
Besides the look of the countryside in Kansas and Oklahoma the biggest take away from the trip was the amount of irrigation in Nebraska. I was amazed at the amount of irrigation in Nebraska. If water ever gets taken away in that country it will be a huge production hit. |
The long slow bleed out of farm equity.
