The U.S. Farm Service Agency has announced that Vermilion County farmers can look into if they qualify for disaster aid based upon heavy rains that occurred early in the growing season. Vermilion County Farm Bureau spokesperson Tom Fricke says it’s actually Edgar County to the south that was included in the disaster declaration; but since Vermilion County is contiguous to it, farmers here can also look into low interest loans that might be available to them.
AUDIO: Really starting June 1st and continuing on throughout the summer, we had so many storms where we had seven to ten inches of rain come down at once. And that just causes havoc in the fields, so that’s what this is tied to.
Just contact your USDA Office for information on this U.S. Farm Service Agency program.
As for the harvest’s progress, Fricke says it’s still a case of a good harvest, but no records are being broken right now when it comes to bushels of corn or bushels of soybeans per acre. Fricke also points out that soybeans are a bit behind right now, not only because of the rains we had a while back, but also because some farmers started on their beans, but went back to their corn because they saw some trouble.
AUDIO: A lot of the guys switched from soybeans to corn to try to make sure they got some corn harvested that might be susceptible to going down in wind or anything like that, so that’s how we’ve gotten behind on our bean harvest.
The usual rotation is start on corn, move to soybeans when they’re ready and finish corn later. But this year, with the rain and wind factors, Fricke says there has been more switching around. He also continues to remind all of us: please be careful on the roads and watch for farm vehicles.
