UP ONE LEVEL

2004 was a bountiful year for the farmers around Coon Rapids. They made a significant contribution to the expected 2.2 billion bushels of corn and 477 million bushels of soy beans harvested in Iowa this year.

According to the Des Moines Register, the corn and bean harvest in 2004 will be enough to fill 714,000 railcars. This many cars would stretch three times between New York City and San Francisco.

The harvest always has a huge impact on our rail systems. There are insufficient railcars to transport the corn and beans. As a result farmers, co-ops and processors are forced to store the corn on the ground. Millions of bushels are stored on the ground in Coon Rapids resulting in golden pyramids of corn (OK, cones of corn). However, as you will see in the pictures on the next page they do look like pyramids.

Pictures of cob piles are also included. These piles are indicative of the massive quantity of seed corn processed by the Garst Seed Company at their City and South plants. As a rough estimate these piles contain over 100,000,000 cobs.

Pictures