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acres.
• South Dakota had between 1.2 million and 1.4 million prevented planting acres in 2011, fourth most in state history.
• North Dakota State University researcher Dwight Aakre estimates the state's farmers last year took a direct financial hit of more than $1 billion because they couldn't plant.
• "That $1.1 billion loss, you're actually talking, with a multiplier effect, of almost a $4 billion effect on our state economy," state Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring said.
• In Bottineau County, for example, Terry Holsten,

general manager of the Theel Inc. automobile dealership in the city of Bottineau, saw his business suffer after more land sat empty than got planted.
• "Farmer sales weren't as high as they were the year before, without a doubt," Holsten said.
• What a difference a year makes.
• "This will be one of the lowest years in both states (for unseeded acres) -- if not the lowest," said Doug Hagel, regional director for the Risk Management Agency, which oversees crop insurance programs.
• Doug Opland, who farms near Des Lacs, typifies the turnaround: He didn't get any durum wheat planted last year. This year, he got his crop in a month early.
• "Anyone in the Minot area, within 150 miles, was glad to see last year disappear," Opland said. "Jan. 1 came, and we just said, 'Good, the new year has come.'"
• The situation was just as dire last year for some corn growers in South Dakota, said Bridgewater farmer Mark Gross, president of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association.

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