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<br />Arthur D Lillle.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 />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />again produce the 65 million to 75 million bushel corn crops of <br />1976 and 1977. They dropped to 53 mi 11 ion bushels in 1980. Many <br />predict a phase-out of corn entirely to lower water-requiring milo <br />and other feed grains. This will prolong the life of the aquifer, <br />even longer, enabling future irrigation acreage and crop production <br />to increase for several decades to come, if energy costs can be <br />brought down or commodity prices increased. <br />Therefore, a rate of transition to an essentially dryland <br />farming economy is really difficult to consider. Rather, experts <br />in the area believe they will witness a transition to "partial" <br />or "limited" irrigation because of the costs involved. This will <br />sustain an irrigation-based agricultural economy and the related <br />cattle feeding and meat processing industry indefinitely at pre- <br />sent or slightly higher levels of production. So, the prospects <br />for the Southwest Kansas people are indeed bright, with some very <br />cautious qualifiers: if energy costs go down, if inflation abates, <br />if crop prices improve, if interest rates and the cost of credit <br />go down, if yields improve, and if conservation practices in South- <br />west Kansas catch up with those now in widespread practice in the <br />less water-abundant Texas South Plains. However, the cost-price <br />squeeze in 1981 has seriously reduced the Kansas farmers' returns, <br />just as in Texas. <br />There is little or no economic and socio-cultural diversity <br />in Southwest Kansas to absorb the shock of a rapid decline in <br /> <br />II-] 0 <br />