Over the last few weeks, I have been across parts of Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota. In all three states, there were many fires where large piles of trees and brush were burning. The last time I saw this much clearing was when I first moved to Iowa from Michigan in 1979. Back then farmers were encouraged by federal agencies to grow fence row to fence row. Easy credit and low interest rates drove up the cost of farmland and many farmers leveraged their operations to acquire more acreage. This was followed by a bust that lasted over a decade and many families lost their farms to foreclosure. Many of these farms had been in the same family for over 100 years.
I served on the Warren County Board of Human Services in the 1980s. I saw firsthand the extent of the suffering that the boom and bust inflicted on so many people. There is a story in the D M Register that some Iowa farmland sold at auction for over $26,000 an acre last week.
Maybe the bonfires in the fields are a warning to the wise to be careful about going into debt during a boom.