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Cloud seeding Is still experimental, but some claim it can bring rain, stop hail.
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1 HE FARMER OF TODAY shrugs
into a jacket and calls to his wife,
hard at work in the kitchen, "I'm
going to take a look at the south
forty. I'll be right back."
That "look" sounds deceptively
simple. Often it means hard hours
replanting, cultivating, and fertiliz
ing his acreage, or, far worse, a
hopeless battle against soil ravaged
by drought, insects, or disease.
Tomorrow's look will be far dif
ferent, according to agricultural re
searchers. Some believe the farmer
won't even go to his land it will
come to him on conveyor belts! And
if it needs fertilizer, a push of a but
ton will release the proper amount
from overhead storage bins.
Drought? That, too, will succumb
to the push-button age. Moisture,
tapped from faraway reservoirs and
carried by nuclear power, will be
sprinkled in precise amounts from
an automatic watering system. Plas
tic roofs over the crop assembly line
will protect the soil from too much
natural rain.
Yes, that's the long-range forecast
for tomorrow's "farm factory." Most
crystal-ball gazers, while agreed that
important changes are on the way,
describe our future agriculture in
more conservative terms.
They foresee changes that will
bring greater efficiency and less risk
to the fanner and, in turn, assure
him adequate profits each year.
These changes will make it possible
to feed 220 million Americans in
1977 some 30 percent more than
now without any increase in farm
land or manpower. In addition, the
same acreage and labor force will
supply our burgeoning industry with
tremendous amounts of raw mate
rials, some virtually unknown today.
If successful, industrialized farm
ing would not only stabilize agricul
ture, a bulwark of our enonomy, but
would hold food prices at reason
able levels.
Of course, turning theory into
reality won't be an easy job for the
farmer. Researchers believe he can
come close to the ideal only ' by
streamlining his business and mar
keting techniques and improving
crops, animals, and machinery.
The first step will be to reduce
the gambles he must take on prices,
weather, crop and animal diseases,
and other variables that cause heavy
losses and waste. As one business
consultant says, "If big business took
the blind risks our farmers do, the
increase in ulcers alone would cripple
our economy."
rpoMORROw's farmer will play the
- "sure thing" as much as possible.
As an opening step, he will keep
special reports on such items as soil,
yield, expenses, capitalization. Be
fore planting any crop, he will bring
this data to an accounting office; it
may be a private business, part of
a farmer's cooperative, or a division
of a giant farm corporation.
Electronic computers will balance
the farmer's report against market
prospects, costs, transportation. The
result will be a fairly accurate an
alysis of what crops should be plant
ed to assure the best return and help
avoid surpluses and shortages.
But even an electronic brain is
worthless when its computations de
pend on fickle Nature. Storms, in
sects, disease, and related hazards
lay waste to 120 million acres a year
acres in which the nation has in-
t Family Weekly, July 21, 1957