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, ' However, NIRAP projects a six to twelve percent increase in the real price of these crops if national productivity increases are held to this level. The effect on the total value of prOduction for an acre of ~ebraska land in 2020 is shown as fol1o~s: Crop Study Projection Price/bushel. Value/acre Low Band Sensitivity Price/bushel Value-acre Corn Wheat Dry1 and Irrigated Sorghum 2.83 571 3.16 561 3.23 3.23 2.44 187 263 404 3.56 3.56 2.72 180 253 384 Input costs per acre w;11 be reduced somewhat if yield per acre ;s cut to these levels. As d result, High Plains farmers are likely to continue in production, although irrigation may be less attractive in some areas. Nationally, consumer prices will increase, and the additional production in the later years of the study ~ttributab1e to water conservation or water imports will have a somewhat greater effect on crop prices and consumer prices becduse of the smaller national production base. Because of the moderate nature of the projected productivity increases used in the analysis, and the compensating effect of reduced production on real crop prices, the projection does not appear to threaten the validity of the analytic concluslons presented. Energy Prices Some of the more notable reactions to study projections occurred in the area of energy pricing. Energy prices affect the study in two ways; they affect the farmer's costs of production, and they determine the health of the energy related sectors of the economy in those High Plains states which have reserves of oil and gas. If real energy prices rise more rapidly than projected, they will increase the farmer's costs of production and decrease returns to land and management. If they rise enough, they could force 1t State level prices determined from NIRAP, actual amounts vary between states by dS much as 10 percent. '-\-25