gold rush

The state of Nebraska is almost the size of the entire UK, with a population smaller than 

Manchester's. It is classic "over-fly" country, ignored by the rest of the US - which, it turns out, is a big mistake.

The rest of America may be having a miserable time. But if you want to be rich, come to Nebraska and be a farmer. There is a gold rush going on, and it is because of corn.

The price of corn has tripled in the last decade. Why? Because places like India and China simply cannot get enough of the stuff.

'A really good time'

Brandon Hunnicutt, chairman of the Nebraska Corn Growers' Association, loves his new combine harvester - which is just as well because it cost three times the price of a large family house here.

Equipped with an on-board computer, an iPad, a satnav and an Android phone, this high-tech monster cuts the corn that feeds the pigs that fill the stomachs of Asia. It also makes the ethanol for American petrol.

There's been a lot of ebbs and flows, but nothing this good.Brandon Hunnicutt, corn farmer

Brandon Hunnicutt admits that he and farmers like him have never had it so good.

"The short time I've been around on this planet, the really good time was right when I was a baby," he says. "And now, 38 years later, this is another really good time.

"So there's been a lot of ebbs and flows, but nothing this good."

And Brandon is a post-modern farmer, which means he is on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. His finger is never off the racing pulse of commodity prices and land values - which keep going up in this part of America.

The price of land in the region has increased fourfold in five years. Land prices in the rural Midwest are doing the opposite to house prices in the rest of America. They continue to shoot up, even prompting whispers of a bubble.

'Phenomenal income year'

There is a ton of extra cash here, and not all of it from the grain shipped in freight trains. Astonishingly, the farming community of states like Nebraska and neighbouring Iowa is still receiving billions in indirect subsidies on products like corn for ethanol, as well as direct payments to each farming family.

It is a legacy of the depression, which in this part of the country now seems like a very distant era.

We have a pehomenal income year that is beyond record.Prof Bruce Johnson, Nebraska-Lincoln University

"No question about it, we have a phenomenal income year that is beyond record," says Professor Bruce Johnson of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

On the subject of farming subsidies, Professor Johnson admits that for local farmers to continue to receive them "gets to be a questionable call".

And Brandon Hunnicutt admits that he does not need the $60,000 annual subsidy he receives in direct payments. In fact, those direct payments could be scrapped by the end of the year.

But the fact is that the American dream is being kept alive nowadays not in an industrial powerhouse or in Silicone Valley, but here in a small-town America, back on the farm where it all started.