Grain Demands Make Millionaires Out of Iowa Farmers

Something to keep in mind when discussing farm bills

Pickup trucks lined a stretch of gravel road where 150 farmers mingled between 7-foot tall cornstalks and shimmering soybeans to see which of their wealthy brethren would bid on a swath of Iowa's richest cropland. This was a farm—table-flat and 314 acres—so coveted that it drew three times the usual land-sale crowd.

"They ain't making any more of this, boys," auctioneer Rich Vander Werff barked into a microphone, his voice slicing through the rising July heat. "This is about as good as it gets."