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<br />Crl" ". , n <br />: U (~ J '"1. 'J <br /> <br />This explosion in feed grain production triggered a new development <br />in the regional economy--the feedlot industry. Prior to 1960, the <br />number of cattle on feed was insignificant, according to records kept <br />by states. By 1973, the five-state southern plains feeding region was <br />marketing 10 million fed cattle annually, 40 percent of the nation's <br />fed beef market*. <br /> <br />With the expansion of land under irrigation and resulting increases <br />in agricultural production came a marked and rapid expansion of <br />associated agribusiness. The supporting economic sectors supplying <br />pumps, tubular goods, sprinklers, fertilizers, pesticides, processing <br />plants, and farm equipment are in place, and represent a very large <br />capital investment over and above the investments in land itself. <br /> <br />Water and low cost, readily available energy have been the driving <br />forces in building and sustaining this highly complex and successful <br />economy. Water is almost wholly supplied from the Ogallala Formation <br />which we know now is not an inexhaustible resource but a finite <br />resources being progressively, and in some areas rapidly, depleted. <br />Supplies of natural gas are also limited, and energy costs have climbed <br />steeply. <br /> <br />Predictions vary as to the time left before the water resources of <br />the Ogallala will be depleted beyond the point of being economically <br />recoverable. The thickness of the formation ranges widely-~from almost <br />a feather edge to over 1,000 feet. It has a marked lack of homogeneity <br />in the physical characteristics that determine how much water can be <br />stored or recovered in a given area. Development of irrigation <br />pumpage has proceeded at differing rates in different areas. Because <br />of these variances, the rate of overall depletion and the time of <br />ultimate loss of the irrigation potential range widely over the Study <br />Area. In some areas where the formation is then, land has already gone <br />out of irrigation. Under a continuation of present practices, many <br />other areaS are predicted to go out of irrigation over the next two to <br />three decades. <br /> <br />05 <br /> <br /> <br />*Obid <br />