There is an old saying about corn being ‘knee-high by the Fourth of July’…but some area corn might not be that tall this year. Other fields have corn that is waist high, but normally by now the crop is much more advanced.
Tom Fricke, Public Information Spokesman for the Vermilion County Farm Bureau, says it has been a very long spring. He adds it is an example of why it is so important for farmers to have risk-management tools available. One of those tools is federal crop insurance. ‘’And Illinois farmers pay a lot of money for that crop insurance.….it is over $300-million dollars Illinois farmers paid for crop insurance premiums last year. So somewhere along the line we got the idea that crop insurance was a government giveaway. It is not a government giveaway. There is investment put into it,’’ says Fricke. He added that while crop insurance ‘’helps even out the rough places, it does not make you whole.’’
[Some corn in Vermilion County – like this field near Catlin – is much more advanced than some other areas in the county.] And as Illinois farmers doubt this year’s corn harvest will be a bin-buster, Fricke adds they also have to keep a close eye on developments around the world. ‘’We are dependant, or we are inter-twined with what’s happening in the world. Whether it’s demand in China and India, (or) whether it’s a record crop in Argentina and Brazil. They had a good soybean crop this year – so that’s keeping prices suppressed on the soybean side as well.’’
Fricke and Jerry Askren, Vice President of Longview Bank and Trust, discussed the farm outlook on WDAN Radio’s Newsmakers program.
[This photo – taken Sunday – shows some of the damage inflicted on soybean crops by the spring flooding near Westville.]
