|
On Sunday, August 24, St. Peter’s
Lutheran Church in Emden hosted a Harvest Festival for the
community.
The festival provided a pat on the back for farmers before harvest
starts.
Several church members served a
lunch of pulled pork, potato salad and chips. Under another canopy,
St. Peter’s youth were serving vanilla and chocolate ice cream with
toppings for dessert.
Tents were set up in the shaded
area of the church property, which provided a nice spot for people
to sit and visit.
While people visited, kids enjoyed
jumping in the bouncy house, swinging, sliding, playing with
marbles, digging in the gravel or joining in a game of cornhole.
Near the playground, two tractors
were parked. Hay bales topped with pumpkins and gourd were set up by
the sidewalk.
In another area was a table with
crates that held home grown vegetables people could take home.
Throughout the afternoon, there were chances to win a drawing for
one of several door prizes with the top prize being a half hog.
During the harvest festival, there were also two speakers with
extensive agricultural backgrounds who talked about the importance
of agriculture.
Walking around Emden's
Harvest Festival and Betsy Pech Speaking- Video
First up was Betsy Pech, who taught agriculture classes for 34
years. Since 29 of those years were at Hartsburg Emden, Pech said
she had taught two generations of some of the families present.
Pech said the people in the district were her biggest supporters.
Though she is retired, Pech still works in the field of agriculture.
For the past seven years, she has been director of the Illinois Beef
Association. During the Illinois State Fair, she has managed the
Ribeye Corral for the past five years.
To Pech, harvest is two-fold and involves bringing in calves and
harvesting the talents God has given to our young people. Pech
looked out at many former students there and said she likes to think
she has had something a role in their success.
The talents of young kids will be harvested by teachers, parents and
grandparents. There are many jobs in production agriculture or other
agriculture careers and Pech said the youth need mentors. She
encouraged those at the harvest festival to mentor our youth.
John Fulton speaks during
Emden's Harvest Festival - Video
The other speaker was John Fulton, who worked with the University of
Illinois Extension for 36 years and served as an Executive Director
for many of those years.
[to top of second column] |
Fulton talked
about the size of farms and various small operations. He said
Logan County is in the heart of some of the best ground in the
world. The county ranks tenth in the state of Illinois in sales
of crop products, which is amazing since we are about 30 in the
state acreage wise.
The county is tenth in Illinois and
twenty fourth in the nation in crop sales, and Fulton said volume of
acreage usually leads everything both state and national.
As far as number of producers, which Fulton said means different
things to different people, there's actually about 1100 registered
entities. About 45 percent of producers are 65 and over, about 45
percent are 35 to 65 and about 10 percent are under 35.
Fulton echoed what Pech said about younger folks really needing
something to get started. As Fulton said, it's hard for a family
member to get started in agriculture let alone somebody who's not
currently involved and has a lot of the background and the supplies
and the equipment.
Those involved in farming know what equipment costs. Fulton said, we
used to think that a $500,000 combine was the ruination and now
you're lucky if you get one for that price,
In the county, Fulton said there's a lot of investment crops with
about 180,000 acres of corn per year and about 160,000 acres of
soybeans. He said there about 5000 acres of other crops, so corn and
soybeans are the main crops.
In relation to livestock, Fulton said 70,000 hog number was our
litmus count around 2022. With cattle, he said there about 2000
[head]. Sheep and chickens are not even at 500, so Fulton said there
are not many of either one of them.
Crop yields are trending up. Fulton said the ten year average corn
yield from statistics is 212. For soybeans, we don't have a ten year
because we don't have enough reports some years to get a number.
As people are getting ready to plant harvest, Fulton said we're
substituting a lot of mechanization and technology for what we used
to do in labor. His dad talked about carrying 100 LB bags of
fertilizer on each shoulder, but we don't do that anymore. Fulton
said some people don't handle a bag of seed anymore. It has enabled
people to farm longer and be more productive.
Another thing Fulton said is increasing is the acres farmed with
about a seven percent increase in the last five years. Fulton looks
for that to go down next year. With more solar panels going up,
Fulton said we're taking some of the ground back out of production.
Land costs and cash rent go together somewhat and Fulton said we're
seeing the slight decrease in both but not a great decrease yet for
cash rent values.
On corn acres, Fulton said we are
looking at maybe that $1000 an acre of figures recorded so that's
going to put the cash in at about 30 of them. Gross income is
remained more steady and net income is way down because as Fulton
said we've had a great increase in input costs.
Fulton said we continue to see things like that as a challenge for
farmers or the people who have stuck with it. There are ups and
downs with the economies and there's always a job to get done.
In closing, Fulton said, “I'll throw out the farmers are among the
most faithful people you'll ever find who else would scatter a few
seeds out into out into the weather …and hope for a bountiful
harvest.” He then thanked everyone for having him speak.
Sunday’s cool weather
made it a beautiful day to be out at St. Peter’s Lutheran
celebrating the upcoming harvest and hearing about the importance of
agriculture in the community.
[Angela Reiners] |
