Northwest Iowa - It goes without being said, but this region's economy is intrinsically tied to agriculture. Its many tentacles have created a thriving economy here, and whether they know it or not, everyone here feels the attect. The impact of any agricultural economy starts at the crop level and spreads to a wide variety of other industries. From a crop-based economoy comes livestock farmers, fertilizer companies, ethanol plants, retail ag stores, and a whole host of other ag-related jobs and opportunities.

"[Ag] creates trade value and value to the crops, but it also employs a lot of people to produce the crops," said Joel DeJong, a crops specialist with the Iowa State University Extension. DeJong continued, "Basically, everything hinges on the production of crops in an area. It has a huge impact."

The amount of available corn played a huge factor in the opening of several area ethanol plants. These plants produce hundreds of millions of gallons of ethanol each year, along with co-products like wet distillers grains and feed-grade syrup. The co-products go right back into feeding the livestock industry.

The cattle industry also remains strong in Northwest Iowa. Several operations have expanded despite the difficult economy. However, the economic downturn has affected the hog industry due to the high grain prices currently in effect.

The local dairy industry has a significant impact on the local economy in several ways. According to Iowa State University economics, for every 500 cows, the economic impact is calculated to be just more than $1 million, with 28 jobs created. The dairy industry provides on-farm jobs such as taking care of the cows, growing and harvesting the local crops and returning the manure nutrients back to the local ground, as fertilizer. It also requires goods and services from local or regional off-farm businesses. In this way, the dairy farms and processing plants stimulate creation an maintenance of local jobs in a broad array of occupations.