Yuma is a town in Southwest Arizona on the border of the California and Mexico. Going right through Yuma county is a large river called the Colorado River. With that water, farmers in Yuma and surrounding towns were starting to start farms and had irrigation. The thing was that the river was inconsistent and the farmers had problems with floods and droughts. This is how irrigation changed the complexion of Yuma and the Agricultural business. Irrigation has turned the Arizona Southwest from a dirtland to one of the biggest agriculture cities in the nation. Yuma was in luck because they had a river right next to them, the Colorado River. Enough water to to irrigate all their farms and their crops. The thing about the river was that it was unpredictable. One day the river would be very low, another day when it would be a bad rain storm, the river would …show more content…
50,000 to 60,000 acres from Yuma to Mexico are fertile because of irrigation. Without agriculture the economy would be in complete jeopardy. Irrigation really changed the realm of Yuma. Acres in irrigation went from 13,000 to 6,100. When there is that many farms, you need people to work at the farms. The number of towns went from 2 to 6. The population in the towns went from 3,524 to 35,000. Every single statistic went up when irrigation was in full effect. In the Southwest, agriculture was the way of life. If there job wasn't in agriculture, it was affected by agriculture. Every 100 jobs in agriculture supported 26 jobs in other occupancies.Eighty percent of the Colorado River’s water goes into agriculture. Without the River there would likely be no Yuma or maybe just a small town nobody knows. The agriculture business is still the biggest business in Yuma. Without the building of projects like the Laguna Dam and the Yuma Siphon, we would be nowhere close to where they are today. The southwest was on its way to becoming the agricultural capital of the
By 1870, the rich Red River Valley grew more wheat than any other place in the nation. River routes were limited and some farmers settled where they were landlocked. As you know, the Lost River didn’t afford much in the way of water access to major cities. To get grain to market, farmers had to ship their harvest over 80 miles to Moorhead. To travel over land, the transportation cost was $0.15/ton for every mile shipped. The value of wheat was only $1.10/bushel. If they were lucky, farmers barely broke even. Most farmers lost money.
Through the period of 1865-1900, America’s agriculture underwent a series of changes .Changes that were a product of influential role that technology, government policy and economic conditions played. To extend on this idea, changes included the increase on exported goods, do the availability of products as well as the improved traveling system of rail roads. In the primate stages of these developing changes, farmers were able to benefit from the product, yet as time passed by, dissatisfaction grew within them. They no longer benefited from the changes (economy went bad), and therefore they no longer supported railroads. Moreover they were discontented with the approach that the government had taken towards the situation.
The Roaring Twenties approached and the citizens in Colorado were facing rough times. In 1920, many people such as farm owners, manufacturers, and even miners were having a hard time making a living due to an economic downfall. The farmers especially, where facing the toughest of times. The price of various farm-grown goods like wheat, sugar beets, and even cattle was dropping because their goods were no longer needed by the public. Wheat had dropped in price from $2.02 in 1918 to $0.76 by the time 1921 came around. Sadly, the land that they were using to grow wheat became dry and many farmers had to learn to grow through “dryland farming” which became very popular in the eastern plains from 1910 to 1930 (Hard Times: 1920 - 1940). Apple trees began to die due to the lack of desire for apples, poor land, and decreased prices. Over the course of World War I, the prices of farm goods began to increase slowly. Farmers were not the only one facing this economic hardship while others in big cities were enjoying the Roaring Twenties.
The Midwestern United States has experienced flooding for a long time now, but recently the annual precipitation has been far greater than before. Precipitation has increased 37 percent since 1958 (Jeff Spross). However a few major floods have been recorded dating back to 1913. In 1913 torrential rainfall hit Indiana and Ohio. The ground was greatly damaged from the flood causing difficult agricultural years for many years after the flood. Another flood hit a large portion of the Midwest region including the eastern Dakotas, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Indiana in 1993. Recovery costs for the Great Flood exceeded $4.2 billion. Like the flood in 1913 agriculture was affected for many years hurting the economy of the Midwest. A more recent disastrous flood hit mainly Iowa in 2008. After the flood in 2008 agriculture again took a hard hit and since the government ...
Texas oil helped America go from an agriculture nation into the top industrial nation much quicker than anticipated.
The nature of the Southern Plains soils and the periodic influence of drought could not be changed, but the technological abuse of the land could have been stopped. This is not to say that mechanized agriculture irreparably damaged the land-it did not. New and improved implements such as tractors, one-way disk plows, grain drills, and combines reduced plowing, planting, and harvesting costs and increased agricultural productivity. Increased productivity caused prices to fall, and farmers compensated by breaking more sod for wheat. At the same time, farmers gave little thought to using their new technology in ways to conserve the
California geography in the 1860s were wide and flat valleys with a limited population what made what the ideal crop. California physical geography in the 1860s were flat and wide in the valleys which made wheat the ideal crop ideal crop, Before the panic of 1893, wheat was “profitable agricultural commodity” (201).The central valley of California improved agricultural through the development of technology such as “planting, pulverizing the earth, spreading the seeds in one operation, and improvements on cutting and threshing of grain” (pg. 202) California physical geography led to a prosperous agricultural and diversity various types of
Americans today tend to believe that the Colorado River drought has been a recent occurrence, although drought relief strategies have been implemented since early 1997. To summarize, in the book The Colorado River Basin Drought Planning and Organizations, Colorado is named as the original state to acquire a drought relief plan. For instance, various assume water levels are diminutive in the Colorado and blame is due to the previous ten years of drought throughout the United States. Although it is true that water levels are at a record low, initial plans in the early 1920’s to introduce manufactured structures into the water basin is the original reason Colorado’s water system began to be compromised. It follows, then the supplementary natural
An author’s way of writing and portraying a character are one of the important things to note when reading a novel. Whether they use third or first person as their view point, have their main character have an underlying dark secret that is not revealed until the end of the novel. However an author wishes to write their novel, there is always a drawback to it. Kazuo Ishiguro’s way of writing his novel Never Let Me Go is in a first person perspective where the narrator, Kathy H., reassess her life of being a clone but the way Kathy remembers and discusses her memories of living in Hailsham is hindered by the fact she inputs her own feelings and thoughts into what happened in the past.
To begin with, According to Newsdeeply, after four years of historic water shortages, farm earnings in the state increased 16 percent, and total employment increased 5 percent. California’s farm economy is still continuing to grow overall, despite the worst drought ever recorded in the state. Particular crops
The Colorado River, before Yuma was built, ran wild. The Colorado River met up with the Gila River in the table-flat floodplains. When irrigation was first created people used gates to control the water flow to the fields. But, before they used the gates a dam had to be built in order to control how much water is flowing. After the dam was built the farmers would open the gates to the fields and let water run in, after the amount of water was needed the people would close the gates and the river kept flowing. This made farmer’s lives
The effect from both the Dust Bowl drought and the Great Depression made it hard on farmers in the early 1900’s; it was hard for farmers to produce crops (“The Ultimate AP US History”). Farmers with small businesses were forced to end
The largest economy in the United States is Texas. During the years of 1970s and 1980s a extraordinary growth increased and while that happened Texas was conducting to a series of economic reversals that produced fundamental changes in the state’s economy. With the oil and gas there was an enormous significant decrease to Texas economy. Later, another disaster occurred with the pattern of back, savings, and loan failures with consequences for real estate and capital investments. Mexico was having some complicated problems that they had a disastrous of economies with many borders of counties and cities. Like any other state, Texas was having his ups and downs, now in days it's better than it was before in the 1980s.The economy of Texas has
For thousands of years dreams of permanently diverting stream water from the Salt and Verde rivers to the arid desert lands of Arizona, through a myriad of canals, would finally come to fruition in the early twentieth century. Flooding and or droughts would always seem to destroy their early attempts at diverting the water. At the end of the nineteenth century, frustrated landowners formed a committee and with the help of Theodore Roosevelt came up with a Reclamation Act that took effect in 1902. This Act birthed the Salt River Project a multipurpose project that would generate hydroelectric power, deliver water, and provide flood protection. The Salt River Project was a dream come true, constructing massive dams and canals, that would supply
Southeastern University is a private, Co-ed, Christian university. SEU’s main focus is to equip their students to be a next generation of leaders so that they can enter the real world as influential servants to their careers and communities. Southeastern university offers a plentiful amount of study programs, even the program I am interested in which is Human services. I selected this school First because it is a Christian college, and Second because of the programs of study. I chose to go to a Christian college because I grew up in a Christian household and because I believe in Jesus. I also chose Southeastern University because of the programs of study. SEU was one of the few colleges that had a program of study that I was interested in.