New Yorkers stop eating steak. Iowans feel the pinch.

For Iowa agriculture, the 50's were happening. Howard Bohr, aged 75, has been an Iowa farmer for more than half a century.  The 1950s, Bohr told the Des Moines Register, "was a perfect decade. You had good prices. A farm tractor could run on liquid propane that sold for six cents a gallon, and good farmland sold for about $300 to $400 per acre. And we also had good weather. We didn't have to fight floods like we did last year."

When times were bad for the national economy, Iowa's farms and allied businesses put a floor under the state's finances. But even in Iowa, farm leaders are thinking that agriculture has become victim to the national recession.

Register reporter Dan Piller prepared an exhaustive report on the state's ag finances. You can read his story at  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009905090336

Delivering on a promise. Last week, right there on the front cover of Lancaster Farming, there was a story about the weather for this week. We were supposed to have a much better weather week, a great time for field work, according to Staff Writer Chris Torres. Chris did an excellent job of seeing that his prediction came to pass. You're welcome.

That's what I call a barn dance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BWa1SvvvuQ