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May 21, 2013

High crop prices turn golf courses to farms

  • Many farmers have pulled land out of the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers not to plant land that could easily erode or is ideal for grassland, wetlands and wildlife habitat.
    • By DAVID PITT
    Associated Press

    BIGGSVILLE, Ill. — Clark Kelly plans to spend a lot of time on the links this spring. The Illinois farmer is plowing the Hend-Co-Hills Golf Course near tiny Biggsville into a cornfield.

    He's not the only one turning over soil in unlikely places. Across the Midwest, farmers are planting crops on almost any scrap of available land to take advantage of consistently high corn and soybean prices. Growers are knocking down old barns, tearing out fencerows and digging up land that had once been preserved for wildlife. Some are even suspected of tearing into pioneer cemeteries.


     
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