The Land of Corn

I arrived in Minneapolis on Friday and met up with Alastair Starritt, another scholar from NSW. We spent the weekend visiting some friends we met earlier in the year in Washington at the Contemporary Scholars Conference. So what did we see - corn, corn, corn and a few soya beans. Not much diversity in the rotations. Lots of ethanol production, piggeries, and a few feedlots. This is Tim Richtger. Tim is a farmer we met earlier in the year. He farms 7000 acres of mostly corn and a few soya beans. Some of his corn goes into his own piggery, and the slurry provides nutrients for his cropping program.

All of Tims land is tile drained. This is the local contractors machine that rips and lays the pipe in one go. $500 US/acre and they can do about 80 acres a day. This year has been particularly wet

and you can see the difference in the crop where the drains are.

We went to the top of Tims grain silos to 'get the lay of the land'. Lots of wind towers in the area. The crops look good and it should be a good harvest.

We also visited Nick and Jessica Ries. Nick and Jess farm with Nicks parents about 40 min from the city of Minneapolis. This location has opened up a number of business opportunities for them. They have a large compost business that mostly is for their own use. They have deal with the local council to take all their green waste. With 3-4 million people down the road this amounts to a fair bit. At present they have approximately 4 years worth in stockpile, slowly composting down. They also have a quarry, grow corn, have excavators with magnets in rubbish tips extracting metal and a feedlot in another location. In one of the best deals I have ever seen they

1. Sell corn stubble to the local feedlot
2. Get paid to take it back.

Now that is a good setup!