1 • Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020 - The Scoop Today/Shopper’s Guide
Serving the communities in Jo Daviess County
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Scoop Today
VOL. 86 • NO. 49
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WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2, 2020
SONYA WILLIAMSON PHOTOS The Scoop Today
Holidays come alive
Visitors to downtown Stockton experienced the holiday tradition of the Living Windows displays on Nov. 27. At left, children watch as dancers perform in the windows of Savvy Scavengers, 109 N. Main St. Above, “elves” are hard at work in the window of Marie’s Wood Carving, 106 S. Main St.
Invested in agriculture: Young people choose to embrace ag lifestyle By Tony Carton
Young folks are usually not interested in farming, mostly because of their poor image of the trade being antiquated and less than profitable, but nothing could be further from the truth. Greg Kent farms near Winslow with his dad and uncle. “We grow corn soybeans and wheat, and I have a small beef herd with my wife, Jamie,” Kent said. He said operating a farm has changed dramatically over the years. “There is way more technology,” Kent said. “I think two of the biggest changes we’ve seen are auto-steer and row-by-row shut off.” Auto-steer is a technology that provides automated steering and positioning in the landscape. It is useful
in farming because it can reduce the overlap between passes of machines, thereby cutting down on energy and time wasted as well as chemicals and fertilizers. Row-by-row shutoff allows an operator to plant without overlapping point-rows. You can also plant turn-rows in the middle of the field without double planting. “As with almost everything else, there is a lot more paperwork in farming today,” Kent said. “And, there is probably more risk. When I got out of college, the market prices were extremely high and then all of your inputs were really high too.” He said market prices are beginning to show some improvement, but inputs remain high and they are traditionally much slower to come into line. “Lately our inputs have come to
a decent spot where we can maybe upgrade some of our equipment or at least keep our heads above water,” Kent said. “Nobody is getting rich farming. It takes a lot of love to do what we do.” He added that farms in his area are becoming more specialized. “I’m not that old, but when I was a kid you had some pigs and some dairy or beef cattle,” said Kent. “Now, you have cattle or you have grain and that’s what you do.” He said economics have changed and that may be an underlying cause
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for why some young people are leaving farming. “Companies are offering benefit packages, paid vacations, and holidays off, but things are tougher on the farming side,” Kent said. “Jamie has a job off the farm for health insurance. My mom and my aunt both have jobs off the farm for health insurance; it’s just a lot of hours if you want to make it work.” He said in spite of all the difficulties, there are still a lot of young people entering the field of agriculture. “In our neighborhood there are
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more young people than you would think that are involved in agriculture,” he said. “I think to step in and not have someone to partner with is definitely a problem. To buy a farm and the equipment is hard, but there are a lot of family operations in my area and they all have young people that are there wanting to step up and step in. “I know it’s not that way everywhere, but here in Stephenson County, there are a lot of young leaders entering agriculture.”
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