Corn and soybean farms hiring more help in 2010

There was 1,157,000 hired workers on farms in US farms and ranches during the period of  October 10-16, 2010. That's up four percent from last year, the largest increase in the number of workers hired from last year was California, and in the corn belt (Illnois, Indiana and Ohio), Appalachian (North Carolina and Virginia) and the Northern plains (Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) regions.

Due to the above average precipitation in California there was more acreage to be cropped due to increased availability of irrigation water. Therefore, more hired workers was needed. In the remaining last three regions the weather was ideal compared with last years. Read more...