Laserfiche WebLink
<br />pumps. Farm supplier sales have declined and are expected to worsen <br />in coming months. This is understandable, with the farmer's histor- <br />ical prices-received to prices-paid ratio at 59, the lowest since <br />1933. <br />Many factors are conspiring to prompt the South Plains farmer <br />to "rethink" irrigation. While dry1and cropping has always been <br />ca11ed the uncertain and the vu1nerab1e way, events this year have <br />proven that irrigation does not insure the invulnerability of the <br />farmer to the weather -- nor to plant diseases and pests. Corn, a <br />good irrigated crop, attracted the corn-borer, but this pest also <br />1ikes to eat the cotton plant. All forecasts point to rapid rises <br />in pumping energy costs, but irrigation involves other costs <br />heavy machinery, pump motor maintenance, more labor. The question <br />is being asked: Which is really the riskier, irrigated or dry1and? <br />Ultimately, no one predicts exactly when the water will be <br />gone. What then? Again most experts foresee a viable, strong re- <br />gional economy based on dryland cotton, wheat. sorghums, and pas- <br />ture for cattle. This is the way it was before. They feel that it <br />can be a low-cost, good yield, high-commodity-price combination <br />for the farmer and rancher, perhaps fewer in number but more <br />efficient in restoring the soil, rather than mining it, as is <br />happening today, along with the mining of the water. Now in the <br />autumn of 1981, the widespread expectation is that the mining of <br />water will decline sharply, prolonging the life of the aquifer, <br /> <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />- <br /> <br />Arthur D Little.lnc <br /> <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />II-6 <br />