Farm Fresh Podcast: Why Two Crops?

Driving through rural areas of central Illinois, you may notice that two main crops dominate the landscape. Why do Midwestern farmers focus on growing corn and soybeans?

Explore the how these crops came to be such a big part of agriculture in the area with Don Meyer, Illinois State University lecturer in this week’s Farm Fresh Podcast.

Listen for the Farm to Table segment every Wednesday on WJBC radio at 12:45 p.m.

Farm Fresh Answers Podcast
Farm Fresh Answers Podcast
Farm Fresh Podcast: Why Two Crops?
Loading
/

Where does McLean County Corn Go?

 

Piled high: In recent years, McLean County farmers typically grow around 60 million bushels of field corn.

Piled high: In recent years, McLean County farmers typically grow somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 million bushels of field corn.

In 2015, McLean County farmers grew more than 63 million bushels of field corn, an amount which would stretch more than 1,000 miles if all of it were loaded in semis parked bumper to bumper.

So where does all of that corn go?

“It’s all about supply, demand and logistics,” says Steve Dennis, Grain Manager at Evergreen FS.

McLean County’s location with proximity to two large corn processing facilities in Decatur, access to several major rail lines and reasonable distance to barge transportation on the Illinois River provide multiple means to move grain to end users.

After the farm, the next step is usually a commercial storage and distribution facility called an elevator.

Grain elevators aggregate and ship corn, soybeans and other grains.

Grain elevators aggregate and ship corn, soybeans and other grains.

“Most of my fields are within five miles of an elevator,”  says McLean County grain farmer David Meiss. The short commute is particularly beneficial during the busy harvest season. “In the off season [winter], I sometimes truck corn to the Illinois River or a rail loading facility in Toluca.”

Corn delivered to a river terminal is likely headed down the Mississippi River and exported to international destinations while rail facilities are more likely to ship corn to livestock farms in the southwestern U.S. or to a processing facility.

“Corn has a diversified market because you can feed it raw to livestock or process it into a variety of products,” says Rod Weinzierl, Executive Director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association.

McLean County agriculture is predominately grain farming with a relatively small amount of livestock, which means most corn travels outside the county in kernel form.

“Probably less than five percent gets used as livestock feed within the county,” Weinzierl says. “There’s some variability year to year, but a large portion of McLean County’s corn goes to Decatur where it gets turned into fuel or food ingredients.”

Ethanol plants can turn one bushel of corn (56 pounds) into 2.8 gallons of fuel plus 17 pounds dried distillers grain (DDGs), a high protein livestock feed leftover from the fuel-making process.

“Not a lot of McLean County grain goes overseas as whole kernel corn, but quite a bit of the DDGs are exported,” Weinzierl says, going to feed cattle, hogs and chickens as far away as Thailand and Vietnam.

On the food ingredient side, McLean County corn can be used to produce sweeteners, corn oil, corn starch and more.

Why do McLean County farmers grow so much corn? Because there is demand for it.

“From a world supply standpoint we have a little bit of carry over every year, but it’s not that much. The world uses pretty much all of the corn farmers grow,” Dennis says.

Click here for the full article in McLean County’s Partners magazine insert.

Farm Fresh Podcast: STEM-ing the Next Generation

A group of 21 teachers got up close to agriculture on farm tours as part of an educational workshop. The Agriculture STEM-ing the Next Generation workshop focused on ways for teachers to incorporate agriculture into their classrooms.

Hear more about the experience from elementary teacher, Deb Rettig in this week’s Farm Fresh Podcast.

Tune in every Wednesday at 12:45 to hear the Farm to Table segment on WJBC Radio.

Farm Fresh Podcast: McLean County Ag By the Numbers

Agriculture contributes $1.6 billion to the McLean County economy. Dive deeper into the numbers with Mike Doherty, Senior Economist with Illinois Farm Bureau for this week’s Farm Fresh Podcast.

Tune in every week to hear the Farm to Table segment on WJBC radio at 12:45 p.m. Wednesdays.

Farm Fresh Podcast: McLean County Rich in Farm History

Challenges, choices & changes in agriculture will be on display in the new “Farming  in the Great Corn Belt” gallery being developed at the McLean County Museum of History.

Find out more about the redesign and what visitors can expect to see when the exhibit opens next year from guest curator, Don Meyer, in our Farm Fresh Podcast.

To see more of what the McLean County Museum of History has to offer, click here to visit their website.

Be sure to listen every Wednesday at 12:45 p.m. for the Farm to Table segment on WJBC radio.

 

Farm Fresh Answers Podcast
Farm Fresh Answers Podcast
Farm Fresh Podcast: McLean County Rich in Farm History
Loading
/
1 2