By the late 1800s, the Middle West became known as America's "breadbasketagribusinessfood processingsteelcomputersSelect your answer". Agriculture in the Middle West is still an important part of our country's food supply. However, today enormous machines plow the fields and plant the seeds. Another machine, called a computersbreadbasketcombinefood processingAmericanSelect your answer, helps harvest grains such as wheat. The combine cuts wheat and threshes it, or removes the grain from the stalk. Farmers also use steelregioncomputersSears TowercombineSelect your answer to help them manage the many details of their growing farms.

An agribusinessbreadbasketcombinefood processingcomputersSelect your answer is a farm or ranch which is combined with other businesses, such as agribusinesssteelSears Towerfood processingcombineSelect your answer. Food processing includes any business that uses raw food to create products to be sold. A specialized agribusiness might produce cattle feed or fertilizer to sell to other farmers. The food processingcomputerscombinesteelagribusinessSelect your answer industry is also important in the Middle West. Steel is made from iron, but steel is stronger, lighter, and lasts longer.

In 1885, a ten-story building was built in Chicago, Illinois. The builder used a frame or iron and steel to support the building. Chicago is still called the "home of the skyscraper." The 110-story steelEuropeSears TowerregionAmericanSelect your answer is located there. By the 1970s, many regionAmericanEuropeSears ToweragribusinessSelect your answer factories imported steel from other countries. Steel manufacturers in Japan and EuropeAmericanSears Towerregionfood processingSelect your answer have been able to build more modern steel factories. Today, there are fewer steel companies in the Sears TowerAmericanEuroperegioncombineSelect your answer, but they are working hard to compete by developing new ways to produce steel.