Local farmers are gearing up to get their corn and soybean crops planted. Now they are waiting on cooperation from the weather. Warm days with drying conditions just right to let them till fields and get the seed in the ground will be welcome. Sometimes that happens--and sometimes it doesn't.

Ashtabula County farmers usually plant around 16,000 acres of corn and 24,500 acres of soybeans according to estimates from the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Good weather often allows them to plant more than usual and wet, cold conditions can limit planting.

Our neighbors to the south, Trumbull County, plant about the same number of acres to both corn and beans that are planted in Ashtabula. Geauga County, much smaller and more urban, is estimated to plant only about 2400 acres of corn and 1700 of soybeans.

Risks in agriculture are many. Weather is the main one. But there are others such as insects and diseases of the crops. Last year, soybean aphids along with a rust caused problems locally.

While we may not realize it, these risks that can happen over wide areas of our country can affect our food supply by causing huge damages to crops. For example, western farmers and ranchers are now worried about an infestation of grasshoppers. Hungry swarms of grasshoppers that can cause millions of dollars in damage are expected in the coming weeks.

These predictions are based on a count made by the federal government. Seventeen states were surveyed last fall and exceptionally high numbers of adult grasshoppers were found in a number of western states. Each adult female lays hundreds of eggs so the population this year could be a disaster in many parts of that area.

Grasshoppers are hungry critters and will eat anything green in sight. They can be a scourge to the country side. Some areas in the west had a high enough population last year to destroy all crops including meadows and pastures. Even home owner shrubs and plants did not escape.

Western farmers are hoping that Mother Nature might help the situation. Cold, wet weather in late May or June could destroy the baby grasshoppers. But with warm and dry weather, some parts of the west will not have any crops and this also affects livestock production. With no feed, cattle will have to be sold at distress prices.

This is another example of the risks farmers take to grow our food supply. Locally grasshoppers are not expected in enough numbers to cause a lot of damage. We always have some and they are as hungry as they are in the west.

We do have another kind of "risk" in this part of the country. That relates to a small part of our population very excited about this grow local-buy local trend. It is a good trend as long as we don't think that all of our food should be produced that way.

Growing local and "organic" is gospel to some urban "foodies" rich enough to afford these high priced foods. But for most of us, the economics of scale on larger farms have made food more abundant, safe and less expensive. If we are going to feed the increasing number of people in this country and around the world, we will need these larger farms and all of the agricultural technology we can develop.

So we need to respect local farmers and all they have to deal with to get their crops in the ground, cultivated, harvested and sold at a price that will allow them a reasonable profit for family living.