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Issue 25 |
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Prairie Grains is the official publication of the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers, North Dakota Grain Growers Association, South Dakota Wheat, Inc., and the Minnesota Barley Growers Association. |
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You'll need the Free Acrobat Reader to open the media kit pdf file. |
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Copyright |
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Prairie Ramblings The best, worst of all things Ag and Y2K By Tracy Sayler NOTE TO ALL READERS: The publisher of this magazine, along with a committee consisting of really important state government officials, top representatives from your local bank and electric cooperative, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and some 12-year-old kid from Fargo who's a whiz-bang with computers, have reviewed this column for Y2K compliance and wish to assure you that at no time upon or after the stroke of midnight, Dec. 31, 1999, will it result in the failure of your utilities, nor will it trigger any massive, spontaneous explosion leaving your farm an ashen crater. Er, at least we don't think so anyway. Since this is my last column of the millennium, we can't just ramble about any old topic. After all, we can talk about emu breeding, bad grain prices, sicklebars and crankshafts any time. But what angle to pursue as the calendar closes in on 1,000 years of human evolution (except in Kansas, where we don't talk about that foolish monkey stuff). Y2K jokes? Y2K readiness? Hot dish of the millennium? Top unsolved-ag questions of the millennium? Best/Worst of agriculture in the last millennium? Predictions for the next millennium? Hmm, so much to cover, so little copy space. So why not do a condensed, smorgasbord version and hit'em all? Here goes: Y2K joke: Take time to check your toilet paper stock to make sure it is Y2K compliant. If it isn't, word has it that come Jan. 1, 2000, it will roll back to 1900 and turn into Sears catalogs. Y2K readiness: A cartoon in the newspaper recently has a guy in a flak jacket standing in
his basement, taking inventory of shelves upon shelves of canned goods, bottled water, cash, and live ammo. He asks his wife: "Can you think of anything I forgot to prepare for the millennium?" She says:
"Yeah—common sense." Indications are that pretty much everything in the U.S. is Y2K compliant, although overseas it might be a different story, so you may want to think twice about flying to Russia on New Year's to
chug toddies with Boris. I imagine Y2K readiness will depend somewhat on your own level of paranoia. Personally, I'm not any more concerned about it than your average Northern Plains blizzard.
To test your PC for Y2K readiness, check out the web site: Aside
from your PC, about the only other appliance that might be bitten by the Y2K bug is that VCR you bought at Woolworth's back when Reagan was president. No problem. Maybe you've already heard this tip already,
but if your VCR has a year setting on it, simply set it for the year 1972, which has the same days as the year 2000. Hot dish of the Millennium:
Stir a can of corn, a can of mushroom soup, hamburger, and egg noodles together and bake in oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Hop aboard a time machine into the
year 2999 and visit any church potluck supper in the Northern Plains. This venerable concoction will be there. On a food-related note, here's an idea from one family I know that plans to have a fun but quiet
New Year's Eve: They're going to have a "last supper," and enjoy food and drink that they normally wouldn't indulge in. Thus, they'll be leaving the Hamburger Helper on the shelf that night. Worst in agriculture in the last millennium: The Irish potato famine, the dirty thirties, El Nino, La Nina, hail, drought, grain dust, grasshoppers, rust, scab, leafy spurge, PETA, bearish grain prices, bearish livestock prices, foreclosures, government involvement, the irony of starvation in some parts of the world and commodity surpluses in others. Best in agriculture in the last millennium: Steel plow, reaper, mower, grain
drill, thresher, self-propelled combines, barbed wire, baling twine, pliers, insulated coolers, insulated socks, tractors, tractors with PTO, tractors with cabs, tractors with air-conditioned cabs and radio; tractors
with a/c, radio, yield monitors, and global positioning satellite technology; government involvement, bumper crops, better varieties, better hybrids, better breeds of livestock, bullish grain prices, bullish livestock
prices, information age, the lifestyle, the work ethic, and the character instilled in millions. What about "Freedom to Farm?" there are pluses and minuses to it so let's file it under government involvement, which in
my opinion has and can be both good (that bonus from Uncle Sam the past two autumns) and bad (Russian grain embargo, dairy policy). As far as corporate mergers and biotechnology, you may already have your mind
made up, but personally, I think the history books are still being written on those two matters. Top unsolved ag questions of the millennium: What's making those mysterious grain circles that seem to show up in European fields, on the front of Led Zeppelin albums, and Fox TV specials, but no where else? How can seedless watermelons be grown if they're seedless? Where do those baby ears of corn served in relish trays come from? What happened to that socket wrench I misplaced last summer? And will we ever have fair global trade? Predictions for agriculturein the next millennium: We'll find out all the answers to those unsolved
ag questions, except those last two. Continued ups-and-downs of weather and prices. More farmers will own equipment and market commodities together. Consumers will accept biotechnology, once
pharmaceutical companies become more involved and health benefits become apparent. A woman will make groundbreaking achievements as Secretary of USDA. Continued trend of "fewer but larger" for farms,
agri-businesses, and yes, even farm groups (You can't expect the tree trunk to change without affecting the branches). The love of farming for the lifestyle, however, will mean that hobby farms will
flourish. So there you have it, my end-of-the-millennium column for your time capsule. Have fun on this flip of the calendar that few in history get to see. Me, I can't wait to click on CNN first
thing New Year's Day to see if any place in the world went black, or kaboom. I doubt it though. So if you or the wife hit the stores later for gift returns, you might want to check out the racks of bottled
water and MREs (meals ready-to-eat). I think you'll be able to find some big-time blue-light specials. And you'll be all set for in-field meals during the 2000 growing season. (The views in
this column are those of the author, and not of Prairie Grains or the associations that publish it. The author encourages suggestions and input from readers, which may be emailed to |
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