My Trip to the Midwest

I flew into Kansas City on Thursday for three meetings on Friday with some of our farm clients. These meetings were productive, but the best part of the trip was on Saturday when I traveled from Kansas City to near Westboro, Missouri which is almost on the Iowa border.

I met one of our farm clients at his place and took a quick tour. Two things jumped out at me. In this area, almost all of the acreage has terraces. In discussing this with the farmer, we both agreed that the use of these terraces probably causes a 30-40% increase in time for tillage and planting. I think he might have been slightly jealous of those farmers with flat quarter sections. On the farm I grew up on we had extremely steep hills but no terraces since our rainfall was moderate throughout the year.

The second item was the amount of wind turbines in the area. Our farmer had three on his land and you could hear the whirr of the machines anytime you were outside.

From there, I journeyed to Troy, Nebraska to visit another farm client. He owns and farms land near Troy with additional acreage about 50 miles south. All of the ground is irrigated and can be controlled and operated from the house. Technology has certainly improved irrigation from my days of moving irrigation pipe through a green pea or wheat field. Green peas were the worst due to the clinging vines.  I know I face planted multiple times during irrigation season.

From Troy, I headed to Manhattan, KS and spent the night in Wildcat country. I headed home this morning in heavy rainfall with lightening that I don’t get at home. The crops I saw all look pretty good, but there was a fair amount of ponding and washout areas.

I am traveling back to Seattle tomorrow, then Portland, Oregon and then onto Santa Fe, New Mexico. At least my wife is meeting up with me tomorrow to help me get my laundry done right.

Paul Neiffer, CPA