Loren Lippincott
Farmers have been around a long time; since the very dawn of time, in fact. We read in Genesis 2:15 that God put Adam in charge of the Garden of Eden and told him, “to work it and take care of it.” In my mind there is no more noble work than caring for the land and raising a crop in service to others.
As I sit writing this article, it was early in the morning 16 years ago today that my father, my hero, passed from this life to the next. My dad, being a fourth-generation farmer, was among the 25 percent of his fellow Nebraskans who work in agriculture, which makes up 20 percent of our state’s economy. Of our state’s land mass, 92 percent is used for farming and ranching.
Since returning to the farm where I grew up, I have noticed an increase in technology, and certainly an increase in costs. Most of the 34th legislative district is under irrigation. When I was growing up, we were thrilled when it rained because we could turn off the irrigation pumps. We had open ditch water and individual siphon tubes which meant a lot of sweaty labor around the clock. Today, 38 percent of Ag land is irrigated in Nebraska. We have the most irrigated crop land in the nation, thanks mostly to the Ogallala aquifer, which is within one foot of where it was in the 1950s, as opposed to Colorado where it has dropped 15 feet.
Of the irrigated farmland in Nebraska, a surprising 98 percent is under center pivot systems. Nebraska is overwhelmingly the top producer of center pivots in America and the world! There are over 55,000 pivots in our state, watering more than 6.7 million acres.
When I was flying for Delta, occasionally a flight attendant would come up to the cockpit and ask, “What are all those circles on the ground?” Often the pilots would say, “Those are pizza farms!” We know them as our bread and butter!
The average center pivot irrigation system covers about 130 acres, with a radius of 1/4 mile. The water usage is 560 gallons per minute or more. The amount of ground water available will determine how many pumps are serving the pivot system to account for those gallons. Center pivots can complete a circle within 24 hours or as long as 72 hours. The average rate is a 48-hour circle, which applies about one inch of water to the crop. This rate will apply 3,510,000 gallons over 130 acres. This equates to the amount of water a town of 10,000 people will use in a single day.
The cost of making one of these revolutions is about $1,200. This cost is dependent on the price of electricity, fuel, well depth and condition of the pivot, but the benefit of that timely watering outweighs the cost.
Of course, irrigation is only one cost of production consideration for the farmer. Into each acre of cropland goes the following inputs: herbicide, $50; insurance, $25; property tax, $80; depreciation of equipment, $20; irrigation, $25; seed, $100; harvest, $50; fertilizer, $200. Overall, the farmer has about $605 of expenses per acre and $800 of gross income with a net of $195 per acre (notice labor is not included here). The current price of corn (at the time of writing this article) is $3.93 per bushel. Soybeans are at $9.88 per bushel. Sadly, this is about the same price those crops were in 1973, more than 50 years ago. The cost of farming has skyrocketed since then (equipment, energy, labor, land prices), but not the markets. Over the past three years the market price for corn has decreased over 50 percent and soybeans have gone down about 40 percent.
Over one third of Nebraska’s Ag income comes from our exports to other nations, so all of us are looking forward to the recently announced trade agreements with Europe and other countries. The U.S. is No. 1 exporter of food and Ag products in the world and our state is first in Ag cash receipts per capita. Lead on, farmers!
Loren Lippincott represents Legislative District 34 in the Nebraska State Senate. Read his column in the Nance County Journal.