We didn't grow corn in my time on the farm, which was long ago anyway, so his content is mostly a mystery to me, but John Phipps has an interesting post outlining 11 steps he and his son are taking to adapt their operation to changes in weather/climate. I'm not sure they're not preparing to fight the last war; one of the things I think we know is that weather in the future will be as variable as in the past. To me that means that adjusting farming operations is likely to pay off over the long haul, but not necessarily the short. (As a side note, I saw somewhere that one place we got additional acreage from is by doublecropping; apparently in southern Illinois and other places it's now possible to follow wheat with short season corn.)
The 11 steps demonstrate clearly how much knowledge the modern farmer needs. It's just a continuation of a long long trend, a trend which puts the small farmer and the older farmer at a competitive disadvantage.
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