Issuu

Today’s Farm TUESDAY, NOV. 12, 2019 n A

PUBLICATION n A SUPPLEMENT TO SAUK VALLEY MEDIA

Rusty Schrader/SVM illustration

Keeping their

ears

to the

GROUND

Some years it’s dry dirt, other years its soggy soil.

Farmers can’t control the weather, but they can control how healthy their land is, and that’s helping them deal with Mother Nature’s mood swings PAGE 2

ALSO INSIDE Farmers are getting a bigger chunk of their income from Uncle Sam this year. PAGE 4 Wet grain equals increased risk on the farm. PAGE 5

Sauk Valley Media • November 12, 2019

| TODAY’S FARM

COPING WITH CLIMATE | SOIL

Keeping their ears to the ground Some years it’s dry dirt, other years its soggy soil. Farmers can’t control the weather, but they can control how healthy their land is, and that’s helping them deal with Mother Nature’s mood swings BY APRIL SIMPSON Tribune News Service

WASHINGTON – Five months after devastating spring flooding across the Midwest, farms along the Missouri River were still under water. This past summer, severe drought hit patches of Texas and Oklahoma and areas of the West and Southeast are abnormally dry. As floods and droughts become more common, farmers, scientists and conservationists are looking for ways to resist. One solution to combating the changing climate starts in the ground. A growing number of states across the country are proposing policies to encourage building healthier agricultural soil, a costly investment for many growers, but one that research shows can benefit farm-

ers and the environment. Just this year, at least 10 states have introduced new soil management policies that call for further research or data collection, or offer tax exemptions, technical assistance or even grant money to, among other actions, plant cover crops, diversify crop rotations and reduce tillage that can tear apart beneficial fungi. Between 2015 and 2018, states debated 166 bills related to soil health, according to an April 2019 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. “When soil is healthy, it can hold a lot more water and drain better, but it also can be part of the climate solution,” said Karen Perry Stillerman, a senior analyst with the nonprofit.

Healthy soil can store more carbon; absorb water like a sponge before becoming saturated, making it more resilient in a dry year; and improve water quality by retaining more water, which reduces runoff from cropland. Healthy soil goes further in meeting the needs of a growing population and food production. Changing farming practices to

promote soil health should be considered a long-term investment, according to many farmers and agriculture experts. However, confusing and restrictive rules regarding crop insurance eligibility also have deterred farmers from adopting practices that can build healthier soil.

SOIL continued on 34

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SOIL

CONTINUED FROM 2

es soil organic matter and can be more beneficial than leaving land fallow during the fall to early spring period, according to the New York Soil Health Roadmap, an initiative coordinated by Cornell University. Different mixtures work better for farmers depending on their region. Between 2012 and 2017, the United States increased its cover crop acres by 50%, from 10.3 million to 15.4 million, according to the Census of Agriculture. The figure is considered an important indicator of soil health practices. Only a handful of states declined in acreage. Soil health, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, is the “continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.” The definition is meant to underscore the importance of managing soil so that it is sustainable for future generations. The future is about more than adopting the various soil health approaches, but instead improving systems to get the most benefits from soil health investments, DeLonge said. “It’s really about trying to make sure farmers are supported in adopting a system of soil health practices that can help improve the sustainability and resilience of those farms in the long run.”

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According to Stillerman, the taxpayer-subsidized program has favored commodity crops, like corn and wheat, which have been the most damaging to soil health. Historically, farmers who grow organic crops, alternative grains like oats, or diverse mixes of crops have not been supported well by the program, though that is slowly changing, Stillerman said. The 2018 farm bill, for example, adds more flexibility to how cover crops are treated in order to remain eligible for crop insurance. The program also is likely to get increasingly expensive as climate changes and floods and droughts become more frequent and severe, Stillerman said in an email. With farm income down, farm bankruptcies up, low commodity prices and an ongoing trade war with China, some farmers struggle to adopt the very practices that could have helped them weather some of the critical obstacles they face. “It’s an outlay of cash to begin these practices,” said Ben Steffen, who grows corn, soybeans, wheat and hay in Richardson County, Nebraska, which received federal disaster assistance after the spring flooding. “Given the economic con-

duced over the study period shows increasing momentum. “We’re also hoping that if policymakers see how much momentum there is on the state level, they’ll get something going on the federal level,” said Samantha Eley, a research assistant in the nonprofit’s Food and Environment program. A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat, to require the secretary of the Department of Agriculture to direct a study of soil health on federal land was introduced in the House July 30 and referred to the House Committee on Agriculture. The 2018 farm bill, which President Donald Trump signed in December, includes a Soil Health Demonstration Trial whose participants will follow certain soil health assessment protocols to enable further research and encourage widespread adoption of practices. In addition, the bill includes enhancements to the Conservation Stewardship Program for agricultural producers to improve soil health. Approaches to improving soil health include expanding the use of fall or winter cover crops, diversifying crop rotations, reducing tillage and using compost, manure, biochar or other soil amendments. Cover crops, for example, increase the amount of carbon dioxide plants take in through photosynthesis. The practice increas-

TODAY’S FARM | Sauk Valley Media

ditions we’re currently in, it’s very difficult to find extra money for those kinds of investments.” And for some areas, such as the flood-ravaged Midwest, soil health alone won’t help farmers get out from under water. “It’s not going to help you if you have a broken levee that’s dumping water into your field continuously,” said Duane Hovorka, agriculture program director for the Izaak Walton League of America, a conservation organization based in Gaithersburg, Maryland. “There’s no soil cure for that. But where you have excess rain, where you have a wet period, healthier soil will hold more of that water for later.” The Union of Concerned Scientists’ analysis seems to highlight a universal interest in soil management, regardless of partisanship, whether policymakers are motivated by climate change or other related environmental challenges. “I think what’s really important is that there is a lot of attention from a lot of different entry points to, ‘How do we improve soil health?’ ‘How does this help us build resilience on our farms and put farmers in a stronger position to manage the climate and the extreme changes that are happening and are also ahead?’” said Marcia DeLonge, a research director and senior scientist at the group. A timeline of soil legislation intro-

Sauk Valley Media • November 12, 2019

| TODAY’S FARM

SUBSIDIES

Farm aid: Fed-funded farm income jumps Uncle Sam is putting more muscle into holding up growers’ bottom line this year BY ADAM BELZ Tribune News Service

More than a third of U.S. farm income in 2019 will come from the U.S. government in the form of the trade war bailout, crop insurance payouts and other federal assistance. While farm income is projected to rise almost 5%, the share of that coming either directly from the government or from government-subsidized crop insurance is way above normal. “It is up significantly, and the big reason for that is the trade assistance package from the administration in 2018 and 2019,” said John Newton, chief economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Those aren’t things that farmers expect to happen on a normal basis. What we’ve seen this year is more of an anomaly.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects farm income to be

$88 billion. Of that, $19.5 billion will come from direct farm payment programs and another projected $10.5 billion will come from crop insurance indemnities. Farmers help pay for federal crop insurance, but the premiums are more than 60% subsidized. In the past decade, farmers’ best year was 2013, when income reached $124 billion and government accounted for only 19% of that. But now the trade war with China, which shut down the largest market for U.S. soybeans, deepened a 4-year slump in grain prices. Poor weather in May and June delayed planting enough to keep millions of acres in the U.S. fallow. The weather struggles continued through to harvest, with snow blanketing soybean fields in northwest Minnesota and a hard frost hitting cornfields before maturity. Crop prices have not risen, and

only payments through the USDA’s Market Facilitation Program – $6.8 billion through May and up to another $14.5 billion in a second round announced in May – have kept farmers close to breaking even. Brian Thalmann, speaking from a combine as he harvested corn near Plato, Minnesota, on a recent Tuesday, said any projection of farm income going up this year doesn’t make sense. “In practical reality, income is not up,” said Thalmann, president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association. “The market facilitation payments, that is not true income, that is income replacement for dollars that farmers did not receive in the market.” Illinois farmers, with $1.1 billion, were the largest recipient of aid in the first round of payments, followed by Iowa growers, at $988 million, and Minnesota, getting $681 million. Newton, the Farm Bureau economist, said crop insurance payouts should be their highest since the drought-impacted years of 2012 and 2013, in part thanks to the payments

“There is not a farmer out there that would want to get income from a government payment versus having it come from the market where it should come from.” Brian Thalmann Farmer

farmers receive for deciding not to plant crops on ground that was too wet in the spring and early summer. Farmers are just ready for 2019 to be over, and they want free trade restored, said Thalmann, though they aren’t complaining about the help they’ve gotten to get through the trade war. “There is not a farmer out there that would want to get income from a government payment versus having it come from the market where it should come from,” he said. “But if there’s going to be continued outside forces beyond what the farmer can control, if part of that loss is going to be made up by market facilitation payments, so be it.”

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FARM SAFETY | GRAIN STORAGE

State warns farmers to use extra caution around storage bins By Illinois e-News

THERE MAY BE EVEN MORE REASON FOR CONCERN THAN USUAL THIS YEAR given the challenging growing season, according to Dave Newcomb, Ag Rescue Program Manager with the Illinois Fire Service Institute. A similarly challenging year in 2010 led to the most recent big spike in grain entrapment cases.”With the late harvest, there is a good probability the grain is going to go into the bins a lot wetter than it normally would,” Newcomb said. That wet grain can start to spoil creating a hazardous air condition in the grain bins. Also, the wet grain tends to clump and not flow properly through the unloading system. “It gets bound up, so people climb in the bin with a metal rod or a piece of PVC and try to poke it and break it up to get it moving again, but what they often fail to do is shut the equipment off. And that’s where people get in trouble,” said Newcomb. Too often tragedy ensues. In recent weeks in Illinois, two such

entrapments happened – one near Marshall and another near Effingham. Fortunately, neither incident led to a fatality. A Bureau County farmer wasn’t so lucky. On Oct. 29, Laverne Molln, 57, of Walnut died after falling into a grain bin at a family farm on state Route 92, just west of Van Orin in Bureau County. Newcomb said that seven out of 10 grain entrapments happen on family farms rather than at commercial storage facilities. Grain bin tragedies can literally happen in seconds. Moving grain acts like quicksand. According, to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a worker standing on moving grain will be trapped within just five seconds and completely covered in grain within less than half a minute. OSHA SAID THE THREE MOST COMMON SCENARIOS LEADING TO GRAIN ENTRAPMENT ARE: • A worker stands on moving/ flowing grain, typically caused by an auger running or grain being moved out of the bin by gravity. • A worker stands on or below a grain bridging situation. Bridging happens when damp grain clumps together, creating an empty space beneath the grain as it is unload-

ed. A worker above or below this bridge of grain is at risk should the bridge collapse. • A worker stands next to an accumulated pile of grain on the side of the bin and attempts to dislodge it. It can collapse onto the worker. WHILE WORKERS SHOULD AVOID ENTERING GRAIN BINS, IF THEY HAVE TO, SAFETY MEASURES CAN GREATLY DIMINISH THE RISK. One of the most important measures is to turn off and lock out all powered equipment to the grain bin and tag it to remain off. “We preach ‘Lock out. Tag out’ like there’s no tomorrow,” said Newcomb. “A worker climbs in the bin and someone comes by and says, ‘Hey, they’re supposed to be unloading,’ and they start energizing stuff while somebody is inside.” OSHA also says any worker entering a grain bin should be provided with a body harness attached to a lifeline and an observer should be stationed outside the bin to track the worker and help if something goes wrong. Grain entrapment is not the only concern upon entering a grain bin. Air inside a bin can be hazardous, even deadly, from decaying grain or fumigation. The air should always be tested before any worker enters the bin.

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SPRINGFIELD – Agriculture is such an integral part of Illinois that people sometimes lose sight of not only its importance but also its danger. The agricultural industry is one of the most dangerous, with a work-related death rate of 23 deaths per 100,000 workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s more dangerous than many other industries considered high-risk, such as mining or transportation. Grain storage is one particularly dangerous area on family farms and in other agricultural settings. Those hulking silos dot the landscape across Illinois – and each year they take farmers’ lives. “It is vital that farmers and other agricultural workers put safety first, especially when working around grain-storage facilities,” said Michael Kleinik, director of the Illinois Department of Labor. Last year, there were 30 grain entrapment cases nationwide, with 15 of those fatalities, according to Purdue University’s Agri-

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TODAY’S FARM | Sauk Valley Media

Grain and rain bring increased risk

RESEARCH | SURVEY

Researchers hope to harvest data from Illinois farmers STAFF REPORT news@saukvalley.com 815-632-2539

URBANA – Researchers and Extension specialists from the University of Illinois want to learn more about this year’s extraordinary growing conditions, and they’re asking for farmers’ help. That help, the specialists say, will in turn help farmers when they face another growing season like they one they faced this year.

Specialists from UI’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences are asking growers to share basic planting, harvest and yield data with the college. “What we have is a giant, unplanned and involuntary experiment that is being conducted by Illinois farmers this year,” said Emerson Nafziger, professor emeritus in the U of I College of ACES. “This experiment can help us understand the ramifications of how

planting date and variety maturity affect overall yields,” Nafziger said. Farmers are being asked to share simple parameters from this year’s crop with researchers, using an anonymous form they can fill out online, e-mail, or mail. “The opportunity to collect a small amount of data on a large number of fields will help Extension provide better guidance if we find ourselves in this kind of situation again in the future,” said Chelsea Har-

bach, an Extension educator at the Northwestern Illinois Agricultural Research and Demonstration Center near Monmouth. The researchers are requesting data on the 2019 corn and soybean crop from fields in every county of Illinois, and encourage farmers to respond by the end of December. Go to shawurl.com/3bzi for more information. Go to shawurl.com/3bzg to download a copy of the survey that can be mailed.

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Sauk Valley Media • November 12, 2019

| TODAY’S FARM

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51.3, respectively. The lower numbers overall was primarily attributed to the wet spring and saturated soils. “In 2019, everything was lower across the state except for Champaign, Iroquois and Livingston counties that all had higher Japanese beetle numbers. We got into Iroquois County, the northern part of Ford County and Livingston County where it also had some of the higher prevent plant acres that we’ve seen when we were out as well,” Estes said.

Other bugs After a year when numbers were on the rise, defoliating insects such as grasshoppers, stink bugs, loopers and cloverworm populations were low in 2019, with the exception of the southern part of Illinois. Bean leaf beetles and grape colaspis are typically sporadic and that continued to be the trend this year. “We hit some areas that had very high grape colaspis. We had seen in past years more grape colaspis in the east and southeast, but those numbers were pretty low this year.

We did pick up grape colaspis in the west-central area this year, but not at very high levels,” Estes said. Northern corn rootworms numbers were also low, except for a few hot spots in Lee and Ford counties. Dectes stem borer was added to this year’s survey. “Dectes stem borer has been a concern in the southeast part of Illinois, particularly as we get down into the very southeast where they’re seeing higher numbers and injury caused by Dectes stem borer. We get into places like Wayne, Saline and Gallatin counties and they’re averaging 7 per 100 sweeps, which I considered pretty high at the time,” Estes noted. “We found it in different counties in the southern half of the state. We were also surprised to see it in higher numbers in PikeCounty. We picked it up in every field we surveyed in PikeCounty. We had seen it in DeKalbCounty in 2003. We know they’re there, but probably just in lower numbers across the state and we’re seeing must higher numbers in the south.”

Fewer beetles The survey also found lower Japanese beetle counts across the state, but there were heavy pockets. The 2019 state average for Japanese beetles was 19.6 per 100 sweeps compared to 47.8 in last year and 28.3 in 2017. However, larger numbers were found in the northeast and east-central crop reporting districts in Illinois with averages of 52.6 and

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CHAMPAIGN – The lengthy wet spring that pushed planting later and later also kept western corn rootworm numbers down across chunks of Illinois. Kelly Estes, University of Illinois state ag pest survey coordinator, said there were a lot of questions entering 2019 about how the arctic temperatures would impact insect populations. “We weren’t sure, and as we headed into spring we ended up with record precipitation and consecutive months of precipitation that led to delayed planting, no planting and just more chaos,” Estes said. “The wet spring and early summer led into a very dry July in some areas at about the time we were beginning to do the survey.” It turned out to be good news in terms of lower western corn rootworm populations, with the Illinois average down to 0.10 rootworms per plant this year. The average in 2018 was 0.11 per plant, and it was 0.51 in 2017. Estes noted the higher levels in 2017 were primarily due to a heavily infested field in Kane County that drove up the average. “This year, we had a very wet spring, saturated soils, rootworms can’t swim, no corn (due to late planting), and they starved, but there were areas that we did see

survival,” she said. The survey found larger western corn rootworm numbers in the west-southwest crop reporting district. “They were primarily from one field in Greene County which by our best guess was a non-GMO field. There were a couple of sites in Christian County that were lower than Greene, but had more than zero. We had a few rootworms show up in Iroquois, Champaign, McLean and Logan counties in corn,” Estes said. Similar populations were found in soybeans that were below 2018’s levels. “Our bigger numbers in soybeans came out of Iroquois and Champaign counties, but overall very low numbers of western corn rootworms across the states. Grundy County was our lone county in the northeast that had rootworms in soybeans and Coles County was the lone county in the east-southeast crop reporting district that had western corn rootworms in soybeans,” Estes said.

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