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Show March 19 Agriculture -It's your heartbeat America By Dorothy L. Peltier How do you like your concrete? with cream or sugar? Every year countless acres of prime farmland are going under to blacktop for sub-divisions, parking, business, shopping malls, etc., and etc. Look around you in Uintah County. Where are the majority of homes leing built? On the productive land! In HIM) your share of the farmland needed to feed you was five acres. That acreage has been steadily shrinking. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Statistical Report, another 3.75 million acres are expected to drop out of the farmland inventory this year. In 1!)35 a farm or ranch was home to one out of every four Americans. In nr, one of every 40 lived on the land. Also down sharply: children on farms. The numler of farm residents 1ms shrunk by n third since 1170 The big reason for the overall shrinkage is best explained in few terse statements made in l78 by n former landowner, Wayne- Swctt "I'm going to sell and subdivide When a guy has to hold down an outside Job to stay in business, farming's just a bobby anyway. I ,-., ,o that on 10 or IS acres.. .1 can grow enough for just me " my family on five acres I "ly fight it, .we're K,uig prices they ,v,id 20 years ago and look bow expenses have gone up..." Agriculture! It's yollr ,r,r,,M, America I |
