Central High School - Arrow Yearbook (Aberdeen, SD)

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 Students experience farm crunch .For American farmers, the economic out- look was not good, according to most farm economists. Farmers may take some slim hope, however, in recalling that the econo- mists have been wrong about as often as they have been right. At any rate, most economists don't expect much recovery in the farm economy in 1986. After a four-year slide, farm income was not expected to pick up much, if at alh farm exports were expected to continue to lagi farmland values show little prospect of recovery soon and farmers who are deeply in debt are likely to continue to have serious prob- lems. ami spread it out. You need to get loans, but the banks won't give us a loan. said Carmin Beckler. We got a pretty good crop this year, but if Dad wouldn't have gotten it. Dad would have sold the farm by nowl she added. American agriculture as an industry still has something to be thankful for. For one thing, despite the gloomy stat- istics and a lot of mistaken media pub- licity. about half of all of the nation's more than 2.3 million farmers have lit- tle or no debt. An additional 25 percent have debt loads they can handle, ac- cording to economists. And a major it y of the remaining debt-burdened farm- ers may even actually squeak through. inventories, such as grain stored in bins and livestock on the farm. For that reason, economists say that net cash income is a better indication of the economic status of farmers than is net farm income. Net farm income is a statistic issued by the government to show the amount of income generated in a given year from crop and livestock production, regardless of whether the commodities are sold, fed to livestock or placed in inventory. Many in the last group, unfortunately. won’t make it through the year. You have to budget your money a lot better Net cash income is the difference be- tween gross cash income and cash ex- penses. It does not include the value of Carmin Beckler skillfully handles a tractor in the fields. Pages Designed By Julie Nikolas Agriculture 9

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One of Jason ToHefson's duties is to see that the animals get their meals on time. 3 utures market unpredictable. A g Business. K uhcubus grain prices. j [ erchants of Food. 8 nvironmental Production. K isks. year after year. Carmin Heckler gets looked over by the curious cow behind her. 18 Agriculture

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5™ AVE Shannon Imber browses in the Peddler’s Treasure, a new store in the Mam Avenue Mini Mall. Tom Berbous eats lunch at McDonalds as it is being remodeled inside. A salesclerk at Aberdeen’s new fashion clothing store. Brauns, helps Heidi Hepperle. A Nash Finch grocery outlet is in the process of being built west of the Cinema. JO Local News