December 29, 2009
By Steve Tarter (starter@pjstar.com)
Peoria Journal Star
PEORIA — Put it in the books - this was an unusual year for agriculture in central Illinois.
David Bliss, 70, who farms in the Abingdon area, said he never saw a year like 2009. "It's been a very, very unusual year. I know in terms of cool weather we've had, I've talked to guys older than I am and they've never seen anything like this," he said.
Photo: Pumpkins rot on the vine in a frozen field south of Washington. A wet season prevented some farmers from getting into the fields, leaving thousands of pumpkins from being harvested. (Ron Johnson)
It was a long year for the area's corn farmers, many of whom were prevented from planting on time by wet weather. The season got even longer as a cool, wet October slowed plant maturation and inclement November weather delayed harvest still further.
Late in December, 5% of the state's corn crop remained unharvested, according to the Illinois Department of Agriculture.
But problems remained even after farmers made it through harvest. Wet corn was the biggest factor in what became one of the slowest harvests on record, said Patrick Kirchhofer, manager of the Peoria County Farm Bureau.
"We've seen some decent yields but the amount of moisture in (harvested) corn was around 23 or 24%. That means more drying time was needed," he said. Corn needs to reach a 15% moisture level before it can be stored.
As a result, area grain elevators were pushed to keep up with demand, drying the corn as it came in from the fields, said Kirchhofer.
Soybeans had their own problems this year. Edwards farmer Ross Pauli called his 2009 soybean crop "very disappointing."
"Yields are off considerably from last year," he said. While averaging 50 bushels of soybeans an acre last year, this year's per acre bushel counts were "in the low 40s and some even in the 30s," said Pauli, blaming the cool, wet weather for the decline.
That wet weather was also responsible for hampering the pumpkin crop in central Illinois, a region that accounts for over 80% of the nation's canned pumpkins.
Farmers like Morton's John Ackerman had to plow under some of their acres of pumpkins this year even though the crop looked "pretty healthy."
The reason? Fields got so wet that the machines used by Libby's, the nation's largest brand of canned pumpkin, couldn't operate, said Ackerman.
A pumpkin problem in central Illinois posed a problem for the nation's bakers, said Roz O'Hearn, spokeswoman for Nestle USA, the firm that owns the Libby's line.
Calling the situation "unprecedented," O'Hearn worried there would be a shortage of canned pumpkin for the holidays.
Pork producers also did a lot of worrying in 2009. Washington hog farmer Curt Zehr said this year bothered him more than any other in the 40 years he's been in the pork business, dating to when he worked on FFA projects as a kid.
"We've had our ups and downs. The year 1998 was bad when pork prices dipped to record lows, but I've never been more concerned than I am now," he said in an September interview.
While some producers ended up giving hogs away in 1998, the present situation is even worse, Zehr said.
"Last winter, it looked like it might be a decent summer, that we might actually make money," he said.
Then (in April) came the outbreak of swine flu - the H1N1 virus. "When the H1N1 thing hit, domestic sales (of pork) went down a little but it really killed our exports," said Zehr, citing bans on U.S. pork products imposed by major buyers such as China and Russia.
"One out of every five U.S. hogs was exported in 2008. That was cut in half this year. That throws a tremendous amount of product onto the U.S. market. The surplus of pork has dropped prices and is a blow to the industry," he said.
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-garden/2009/12/boycotting-monsanto-seminis-seeds.html