Here it is, live from Niedersachsen, the one you have all been waiting for, the CROP REPORT! Located 100 meters behind our house is a corn field and as you can see it hasn't been sprayed for weeds yet. The corn is up and 6-8 inches tall. The migrant workers are diligently working on picking the full fields of strawberries east of town and the potato crop is looking strong thus far. Niedersachsen has a lot of diversity in their crops from winter wheat to fields of white asparagus (Spargel) to giant areas of raspberry bushes. I guess fruits are popular and grow well around here, no complaints from me. Recently I've seen several farmers cut what appears to be barley or oats and then make it into silage. They cover their piles with black tarp and old tires just as we do on the farm in South Dakota. The machinery is not near the size as it is in the U.S. but the fields are also much smaller. I've seen 4-6 row planters and lots of little tractor mounted spraying units. Massey Ferguson and John Deere Tractors make up the majority, but I've not taken any statistics on which is more popular. Once my German is a bit more fluent then I will start conversing with the local farmers (bauers) to get more details.
The animals in the area are 70% pigs, 20% milk cows, and 10% horses, but these are just estimates from what I've seen. I do know that the pork ribs I ate last weekend off the grill were not as meaty as the American ribs so we can make the assumption that their pigs are not as pumped with steroids as ours or they are simply smaller boned animals. Stay tuned for the full LIVESTOCK REPORT!
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