West of Mpls MN about 50 miles on Hwy 12 | Here, our rolling hills were considered "good" farmland waay back in the day not the swamps. If the land needs tile to be productive/profitable as commodity growing farmland...was the land ever meant to be "good" farmland? Same goes for irrigation.
I sure wish that the Army Corps of Engineers would have dug that government funded ditch another two or three feet deeper, and then someone's ancestor would have hand dug another two or three feet deeper through that yellow clay hill waay back in the day. But the need was greater for fuel (horse hay) not corn and soybean production back so that's what the government funded.
The government funded drainage wells to outlet tile water back in the day, I'm sure some of the old drainage wells are still in use today even with our dependance on chemical farming...who thought that was a good idea? I see drainage wells are becoming popular again for residential roofs, parking lot, and commercial building runoff...and we wonder why there is an increase in cancer and Autism.
We U.S. farmers have a very long history of over producing the profit out of "good" farmland...depending on the current government policy of the day. |
time to trim the fat
