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Monday, September 24, 2012 Three sections Volume 40, No. 39

FarmWeek on the web: FarmWeekNow.com Illinois Farm Bureau®on the web: www.ilfb.org

An IllInOIs ag r icu l turecoalition formed to help consumersbetter understand farming had asuccessful first year. ......................12

THE 2012 DROUGHT washard on most Illinois crops this sum-mer, but a Beason family’s pumpkincrop fared pretty well. ......................10

43 DAYSREMAIN UNTIL THE NOV. 6 ELECTION

IFB pushing for a lame duck farm bill voteBY MARTIN ROSSFarmWeek

Lawmakers left Capitol Hillfor the campaign trail last weekwithout passing a new farmbill, leaving Farm Bureau push-ing for post-election action toprovide farmer certainty.

House Speaker John Boehn-er (R-Ohio) confirmed no farmbill would be passed before theNovember elections, despiteSept. 30 expiration of 2008farm legislation.

Boehner and MajorityLeader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)questioned whether they couldgarner the 218 votes necessaryto pass either the Senate’s farmbill or a House Ag Committee

ules, Congress can pass a newfarm bill by year’s end “withoutdamaging agricultural inter-ests,” Callan assured summitparticipants.

At the same time “Farm BillNow” — a broad coalition offarm, agribusiness, conserva-tion, and energy interests —has stumped for fall passage,the Environmental WorkingGroup (EWG) has escalatedefforts to derail proposed agpolicies.

The EWG charged theHouse Ag Committee “pro-posed to increase farm welfareat a time of record farmincome and to cut programs forthe poor and the environment

in order to lavish new subsidieson highly profitable farm busi-nesses.”

In fact, the House billrepeals direct, countercyclical,and average crop revenue elec-tion payments in favor of anew revenue safety net, cuttingprogram costs by $14 billion.

Callan conceded recentUSDA Economic ResearchService (ERS) predictions thatU.S. farm income would exceed$122 billion in 2012, reflectingcorn and soybean price gains.

But he stressed “there arestill a lot of risks on the farm,”and warned many drought-

See Vote, page 4

draft that’s been in limbo sinceJuly. As of last week, a reported50 lawmakers had signed a peti-tion demanding an immediateHouse floor vote.

Illinois Farm Bureau Presi-dent Philip Nelson stressed“we’re not giving up” on 2012passage of a new farm bill —the IFB board urged post-elec-tion action in a letter to Illinois’congressional delegates.

James Callan, a Washington,D.C. policy consultant who vis-ited last week with House andSenate Ag Committee leaders,noted continued bipartisan sup-port for a 2012 farm bill.

“They want to see a farm billdone this year,” the former

USDA Risk ManagementAgency official told Farm-Week at last week’s Soy andGrain Trade Summit in NewOrleans. “Some think we don’tneed a temporary extension (ofthe 2008 bill) if there could bea commitment from the Houseleadership for (post-election)time on the House ag bill.

“That would be sufficientnot to disrupt programsbetween the end of Septemberand the end of the year. It’s alittle uncertain right now. (Aglawmakers) know farmers needcertainty, particularly with thedrought we’ve had.”

Because various programsexpire under different sched-

Two combines made short work last week of this field of soybeansowned by Lo Farms and located near Savoy in Champaign County. The

field yielded between 32 and 36 bushels an acre. (Photo by CyndiCook)

Smaller corn crop leads to quicker harvestBY DANIEL GRANTFarmWeek

The combination of goodweather, an early-maturing corncrop, and smaller-than-averageyields helped many farmers geta jump on corn harvest.

In fact, some farmersrecently wrapped up corn har-vest for the season.

“Harvest in my area (ofdeep Southern Illinois) isclose to three-quarters done,”Jeff Scates, president of theIllinois Corn Growers Associ-ation and a farmer from

“Corn yields on the heavierground held up,” he said. “Buton the lighter soil, yields fell offdrastically.”

The results are even morevariable in Southern Illinois,which was the epicenter of thedrought for much of thegrowing season.

“It’s really variable, fromzero to over 200 (bushels peracre),” Scates said of corn yieldsin his area. “For the most part,it’s definitely down quite a bit”from average.

USDA earlier this monthprojected farmers nationwidewill produce 10.7 billion bushels

of corn, which would be thesmallest crop since 2006, and2.63 billion bushels of beans,down 14 percent from last year.

Dunkirk said pork produc-ers and other livestock farmersare concerned about the shortcrop and its impact on feedavailability and prices.

“Nobody has a real goodhandle yet what the supply ofcorn will be (heading into 2013),and there are concerns aboutquality,” Dunkirk said.

Livestock producers haveresponded by changing feed

See Harvest, page 7

Shawneetown, said Friday. “We’re just over halfway

done, but I also know somefarmers are completely donewith corn.”

Statewide, corn harvest as ofthe first of last week was 36 per-cent complete compared to thefive-year average of 13 percentand just 9 percent a year ago.

Nearly all of the corn crop(87 percent) was mature lastweek compared to the averageof 52 percent.

“We’re on the downhill slide.There’s maybe 15 to 20 percentof corn left in my area,” saidDereke Dunkirk, a grain and

pork producer from Mor-risonville who also is presidentof the Illinois Pork ProducersAssociation (IPPA).

Soybean harvest as of the firstof last week was in the beginningstages with 3 percent of the cropin the bin statewide compared tothe average of 2 percent.

“Lines at the elevator arelong, as they’re testing everyload for aflatoxin,” Scatesnoted. “But with loweryields, it’s not slowing downcombines a whole lot.”

Dunkirk said corn yields inhis Christian County area rangedfrom 80 to 170 bushels per acre.