WMOD00234

• Contract/Permit #: #93-5
• Applicant: Western Kansas Groundwater
• Project Name: Kansas Weather Modification
• Date: 1/1/1993
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

VII. ANALYSIS OF WKWM ECONOMIC EFFECT

In 1993 a variety of data have been put into our computer bank
pertaining to each county ever having participated in the WKWM
Program, among the data are information pertaining to the 4 major
row crops and hay produced in Western and Southwestern Kansas,
including yields, prices for crops, crop-hail insurance losses,
liabilities and premiums, and farm values for crops. The data is
for the 8-year period 1985 through 1992---the only years for which
there is complete data on file. More data is expected to be added
to the historic period before 1985 and more will be added as years
pass. The data were extracted from the annual publications of
"Kansas Farm Facts", from the Kansas Agricultural Statistics and
the USDA; other data were taken from the National Crop Service's
annual publications for Kansas, "CroP-Hail Insurance Statistics".
One note, much of the agricultural statistical data are best
estimates based on hundreds, perhaps thousands of inputs of
information from farmers or derived by various other means. These
data give us an independent source upon which conclusions can be
formulated; certainly it is better than no data at all. From the
vast inputs going into the data set, we believe certain relations
among the data may be suggested.

This analysis attempts to touch on questions some people
wi thin the WKW/oI participating counties may have had about such
things as target area agricultural productivity, hail-damage values
to crops over a given time period and what direct economic effect,
if any, the WKW/oI Program might have had on farm income. Throughout
'this section comments will be made and certain details will be
pointed out entirely from our limited perspective. However, many
readers, like us, who aren't economic experts may tend to look at
what is shown somewhat differently, or be able to inject his own
individual perspective of it based personal experiences.

Since our target area has undergone periodic boundary changes
from its inception in 1975, we decided to look only at those
participating counties for each of the years we currently have
complete data for from 1985 to 1992. The graphs shown in Figures
9 (a) and 9 (b) demonstrate how each of the crops have combined to
contribute to the total crop value produced by WKWM counties during
this period and what percentage each contributes to Farm Value.
Although there are more crops grown than those shown, their impact
is small by comparison and have been omitted. Wheat produced 44% of
the 8-year Farm Value here and agriculturally dominated the area.
The 8-year Farm Value of wheat has been closely matched by the
combined values of the corn and milo crops. The Farm Value for hay
was a close runner-up to milo; whereas, soybeans added only a
comparatively small fraction to the total.

NOTE: The Farm Value data presented does not include income that
has been derived through the Crop Reduction Program (CRP), a
governmental subsidy for reducing acreage which developed during

37