North Dakota has enjoyed some prosperity, but it has also seen devastatingly hard times. In 2003, the essential problem remains the same as a century earlier--finding the capital necessary to provide services and benefits of a modern society to a far-flung population. As it was in 1889, North Dakota remains a social, cultural, and economic colony, a producer of raw materials, a consumer of manufactures and capital, and an exporter of educated young people. North Dakota's basic industry, agriculture, underwent major difficulties through much of the past 30 years trying to establish the state as a participant in a globalized economy. Record prices for American grain in the early 1070's led many farmers to expand their operations and others to go deeply into debt to enter agriculture. As the price of land climbed, so too did prices for machinery, seed, and the other "inputs" of agriculture. Commodity prices, however, never returned to the levels of the early 1970s, and by the end of the decade many farmers found themselves unable to generate enough income to maintain their debts. Rural discontent mounted and the population started to move out of state. The trend continues until today, though land values dropped substantially, the number of farms has declined steadily. The boom-and-bust cycles in North Dakota's agriculture and energy industries have rippled through the state's economy. Recent administrations have re-doubled efforts to encourage new industry and to stimulate other sources of revenue, although with only moderate success.