The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1361578
Every year, average county yields for corn and soybean are published, provid- ing an important tool for farmers and the agricultural industry. Some farm pro- grams hinge on having average yields provided. Those numbers came out in late February so quietly this author ini- tially missed it. The National Agricultural Statistics Service collects data on many factors in the agricultural industry, providing an un- biased view of the current state of agricul- ture from the county level to the national level. Collecting acres planted into a spe- cific crop gives an early perspective on the amount of a potential crop that could go to market. Monitoring price received gives an indicator of farm profitability in various sectors and regions. Yield statis- tics are a final measure of total produc- tion as well as the variability in produc- tion by region. Wherein a certain num- ber of yields can be reported for a county, that county gets an average. If the num- ber of data points is too low, county yields are not reported, relying instead on a dis- trict average. Let's look at winter wheat as an example. In 2020, Gibson County win- ter wheat averaged 73.1 bushels per acre, while Vanderburgh County averaged 66 bushels. Posey County averaged 70.7, and Pike County 51.1. Coun- ties like Martin and Spencer Counties have too few data points for a county average, forcing them to use a district average. That district num- ber being lower than Van- derburgh or Gibson County, a county that can produce a good yield has some incen- tive to provide enough da- ta points for an accurate representation. Drawbacks also exist to high county av- erage yields. The average corn yield in Posey Coun- ty for 2020 was 199.0 bushels per acre, with soybeans clocking in at 65.4 bushels per acre. For comparison, Vanderburgh County corn averaged 204.7 bushels and Gibson County corn 200.3 bushels. Soy- beans in Vanderburgh County averaged 69.4 bushels per acre, with Gibson Coun- ty averaging 61.1 bushels. Those yields set some records. For Posey County, we set a new record on corn, eclipsing 2014 yields of 197.3. Posey County smashed its old soybean record of 57.8 bushels per acre set in 2014. Likewise, Gibson and Vanderburgh County set record yields for both crops, with Gibson County never having experi- enced over 200 -bushel corn or greater than 60 -bushel soybeans in the past. Vander- burgh has never averaged 200 -bushel corn, but they did exceed 60 -bushel beans in 2017 and 2019. Pike Coun- ty also set records for their production, 181.4 bushels per acre corn and 55.8 bushels per acre soybean. These yields are high enough to prevent an ARC payment for corn and soybeans, accord- ing to the University of Illinois FAST Tool payment estimator. In addition to government programs, some crop insurance tools use the county average yield in their calculations. Coun- ty average yields can be useful for deter- mining land values in an area. The statis- tics are valuable in many different ways. For more information on those ways, contact Hans Schmitz at 812-838 -1331 or hschmitz@purdue.edu. The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, April 14, 2021 B-5 ble environment to succeed in the glob- al economy. In 2020, 25 OECD countries still had a lower corporate tax rate than the U.S. If Biden raises the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, it would put the United States back in the dubious position of again hav- ing the highest tax rate on businesses among our international competitors. Myth: The cuts caused the high defi- cits Trump and other Republicans some- times misleadingly asserted that the tax cuts would pay for themselves. These claims unfortunately confused the pub- lic about the true purpose of tax reform, which was to allow more Americans to keep more of the money they earn and strengthen the economy, not to max- imize the revenues for the federal gov- ernment. It is also a complete fabrication to blame the tax cuts for the Treasury's poor fiscal health, which is due to the unsus- tainable growth in government spending for several decades and exacerbated by more spending increases following the tax cuts. The recent $1.9 trillion stimulus bill will add more in debt by next year than the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was project- ed to reduce revenue by over a decade. Biden's new $ 3 trillion spending propos- al is twice the size of the tax cuts. Reversing the tax cuts would be a big mistake and would hinder the much-needed economic recovery pro- cess. Instead of higher spending and damaging tax hikes, Congress and Biden should prevent tax increases, continue making the tax code more competitive, and get spending under control. Matthew Dickerson is the director for the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Fed- eral Budget at The Heritage Foundation. TAX Continued from page 4 of violence, but I from com- mon sense that when a gener- ation of impressionable chil- dren and adults are exposed to violence in movies, videos, games and songs, indoctrina- tion sets in and it becomes an inspiration to carry them out with little or no remorse Remember the old cow- boy movies showing a lot of shootings? Then came James Bond, then many Hollywood movie producers created vi- olent movies. Later on, even more bizarre, hideous shows followed in the name of enter- tainment. Remember those video games that showed more graphic scenes of killing and scenes blasting people away? By the time toddlers become young adults, they have prob- ably seen thousands of kill- ings that have numbed their consciences. Now the vulnerable have become inspired or wired to carry them out because they saw so much of it and have felt it's no big deal. Add- ing to the mix is the break- down of authority and struc- ture in fractured homes, plus drugs, lack of sound spiritu- al values, bullying, and you have a volatile cocktail mix. Yes, some segments of so- ciety blame the easy access to obtaining guns as a big fac- tor. That's probably true to an extent but the above argu- ments and observations I ex- pressed likely play a heavier role in the horror story. I ha- ven't even mentioned scary ideologies now prevalent on higher learning institu- tions that are called progres- sive and relativist thinking. That'll take another column. ••• Wisdom of the week: " Know love, know peace. No love, no peace. You will know the kind of tree you have by the fruit it bears." Humor of the week: "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always de- pend on the support of Paul."- George Bernard Shaw. " A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fel- low man, which he proposes to pay off with your money."- G. Gordon Liddy. " The inherent vice of cap- italism is the unequal shar- ing of the blessings. The in- herent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of mis- ery."-Winston Churchill. "A government big enough to give you everything is strong enough to take every- thing you have."- Thomas Jef- ferson. Hmmmmm. Court Report FELONY Pike County Circuit Court Sean M. Lemond charged with count I domestic battery, count II possession of marijuana and count III domestic bat- tery, prior, a level 6 felony. Jason E. Hammock charged with count I residential entry, break and enter dwell- ing, a level 6 felony, and count II public intoxication. Nicholas J. Brewster charged with count I operating a vehicle with an ACE of at least .08 but less than .15 and count II operating a vehicle while intoxicated, prior, a level 6 felony. Douglas Dillon charged with count I operating a vehicle while intoxicated and count II operating a vehicle while intoxi- cated, prior, a level 6 felony. TRAFFIC AND MISDEMEANORS Pike County Circuit Court Miranda L. Allen charged with count I domestic battery and count II posses- sion of marijuana. Scott Schroeder charged with count I operating a vehicle with an ACE of at least .08 but less than .15 and count II op- erating a vehicle while intoxicated. Klayton Marcus Kixmiller charged with possession of marijuana. Ronald L. McCandless charged with count I operating a vehicle with and ACE of .15 or more and count II operating a ve- hicle while intoxicated. Dakota Michael Bayer charged with driving while suspended, prior. Chaz Clayton Lengacher charged with count I false informing and count II pub- lic intoxication. Douglas Neal Dillon charged with op- erating a vehicle while intoxicated. Christian T. Stepanek charged with count I theft and count II possession of paraphernalia. CIVIL Pike County Circuit Court First Financial Bank, N.A. sues Mat- thew Hornby on complaint. Crown Asset Management, LLC sues Melissa Beadles on complaint. Stephen Shoultz sues Vicki Shoultz for dissolution of marriage. Sam D. Polen sues Donna J. Polen for dissolution of marriage. Emily S. Wright sues Dalton Wright for dissolution of marriage. SMALL CLAIMS Pike County Circuit Court Trinity Ambulance Service sues Wash- ington Nursing Center on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Tom- my R. Hayes on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues James A. Goodpasture on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Laura M. Hensley on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Kim- berly Gray on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Dylon M. Brittain on complaint. Hoosier Accounts Service sues Johan- non J. Hill on complaint. INFRACTIONS Pike County Circuit Court Treston M. Short charged with speed- ing, exceeding 70 mph. Bailey N. Fries charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Lane M. Doades charged with speed- ing. Debra A. Gibson charged with speed- ing, exceeding 55 mph. Jordan G. Hill charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Shawn W. Shepherd charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Logan M. Haire charged with speed- ing, exceeding 70 mph. Amanda S. Akers charged with speed- ing. Travis W. Hagedorn charged with seat- belt violation. Mitzi K. Williams charged with speed- ing, exceeding 55 mph. Rose D. Platel Rene II charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Christina Marie Smith charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Brittney M. Grabert charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Damian Evan Fernandez charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. James O. Harrison charged with driv- ing while suspended. Lazaro Milton Quinonez charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Nolan Drake Kinnett charged with speeding. Bradley J. Hawthorne charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Brycen H. Knepp charged with speed- ing, exceeding 55 mph. Kayla J. Wellmeyer charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Andrew M. Thomas charged with speeding, exceeding 55 mph. Amanda K. Tegnell charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Cale Hoffman charged with speeding. Quinlin Williams charged with failure to wear helmet, individual less than 18 years old. Bethany A. Kempf charged with speed- ing. Grethel Mendoza charged with speed- ing, exceeding 70 mph. Keith A. Payne charged with speeding, exceeding 70 mph. Randy E. Anders charged with speed- ing. Crit T. Downing charged with failure to register an off-road vehicle. ous regulations. They make it hard to create anything new. It's also a reason hous- ing costs so much. California passed a law raising its minimum wage from $13 to $15/hr. That's one reason many Califor - nians can't find any legal work. A good thing about Amer- ica having 50 states is that when states fail, we can learn from their mistakes. People defeated by Califor - nia's rules move to Nevada or Texas. But if the federal gov- ernment adopts California's rules, where can we move? The Congressional Bud- get Office says a national $15 minimum wage will help some people, but it will cost 1.4 million jobs. Yet, Biden wants the high- er minimum. Biden's plan for America also includes a new version of Cash for Clunkers, the ab- surd program that once paid people to junk old cars. Cal- ifornia has its own version, which the state claims helps reduce emissions. "But most of the cars that were turned in were not even actively registered," says Tate. "It means they probably were just going to be scrapped anyway! These programs are failures... but they make environmentalists feel good." Like California's "clean en- ergy" rules. How long until all American motorists pay the $4/gallon Californians pay? Or the $7 people pay in Norway and Denmark? Biden also picked lots of Californians for his admin- istration. When Vice President Ka- mala Harris was San Fran- cisco's district attorney, she oversaw 1,900 convictions for pot offenses. Yet, she's since joked about her own marijua- na use. When the Biden ad- ministration fired staffers for using marijuana in the past, Harris was spared. "Unfortunately, there's been a trend in the Biden administration of giving jobs to people who might check (race and gender) boxes," says Tate. "But they have horrendous track records." Biden made Alejandro Mayorkas America's new secretary of Homeland Se- curity even though he was cited by the inspector gener- al for pressuring his staff to approve visas for politically powerful Democrats. "In government, you al- ways fail up," complains Tate. The L A Times wrote that Biden wouldn't nominate Cal- ifornia Labor Secretary Julie Su because "rampant levels of fraud scuttled (her) pros- pects." Biden then made her deputy secretary of labor. "If we make America Cal- ifornia," concludes Tate, "we are all going to be paying for it." At least Californians can move to other states. But I don't want to leave America. John Stossel is author of "Give Me a Break: How I Ex- posed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media." CALIFORNIA Continued from page 4 LOVE Continued from page 4 Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah and Montana, from cut- ting taxes in their states. Si- multaneously, wealthy coast- al states are looking to elim- inate the state and local tax deduction limits included in former President Donald Trump's 2017 tax package. The current limit is $10,000, and eliminating it would like- ly favor wealthier, liberal tax- payers whom Democrats al- ways say do not pay "their fair share." The Biden ad- ministration might want to urge New York and Califor- nia to ease the tax burdens in those states instead of tak- ing it out on Western states. Westerners are rightly infuriated that members of Congress from Delaware, New York and Massachu- setts, who have little or no knowledge about how to manage resources, are tell- ing the farmers, miners and ranchers in places like Col- orado, Montana and Utah what they can do with their own property. Twenty-one state attorneys general in primarily Moun- tain and Southern states are suing Washington for block- ing their prerogative to run their own fiscal policies. They say that Biden is vio- lating the 10th Amendment, which ensures that all rights not explicitly granted to the federal government "reside with the states and the peo- ple." For the future of our repub- lic, let's pray that the courts agree. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foun- dation and an economic con- sultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trum- ponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the Amer- ican Economy." FIGHT Continued from page 4 Down on the Farm By Hans Schmitz, Purdue Extension Educator County corn and soybean yields published agenda who now control the White House and Congress, that has motivated CEOs to step out on Georgia's voting law. In doing so, they are abus- ing the economic power of their firms and, as a result, damaging the economy and the political integrity of our nation. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writ- ers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. DELTA Continued from page 4 Do It Yourself or Let us Help! 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