Franklin County Farm Bureau News

Gay Bowlin, Manager

Temperatures have reached the lowest of the season and the National Weather Service states that these cold temps will be the norm for most of the winter months.

The fruit prices were incorrect in last week’s article – here are the correct prices listed below
We are taking orders for fruit again this year – the prices are as follows
Grapefruit – 4/5 bushel – $25    2/5 bushel – $15

Oranges – 4/5 bushel – $26       2/5 bushel – $16

Tangelos – 4/5 bushel – $25      2/5 bushel – $15The fruit orders must be received no later than November 24 and will be delivered the week of December 15.

Pecans sell for $9.00 1 lb bag and chocolate covered pecans are $8.00 for 12 oz – they will be available for pick up before Thanksgiving and we are taking orders.  Call the office at 435-3616.

Attention all Franklin County Farm Bureau Members – take the time to mark your calendars for Monday December 1 and to call the office to make your reservations for our County Annual Meeting.  The meeting will be at the Benton Civic Center with food served at 6:15 p.m. There will be a Silent Auction and this year we are pleased to announce that Magician Chris Egelston will be this year’s entertainment.  Call the office at 435-3616 by November 21 to make your reservations.

Drive through rural parts of Illinois and you’ll see them everywhere … on farms and at grain elevators. Piles of corn. Lots of them. Huge piles. Never before has this much corn been harvested in the U.S. In fact, the 2014 growing season was so successful that state officials have approved temporary storage for 107 million bushels of grain (hence the corn piles) because of the likelihood that storage silos will be full both on farms and at grain elevators.

Those piles of corn are symbolic of many things.

They symbolize farmers’ resilience. Just two short years ago, much of the nation’s corn crop burned up in the field as the country’s midsection experienced a punishing drought.

They symbolize farmers’ productivity. This year’s U.S. harvest will set a new record – in excess of 14 billion bushels of corn. For years there has been a trend away from making goods and toward service-industry jobs in this country. Yet farmers have never stopped delivering a tangible product.

They symbolize ingenuity and resourcefulness. Those kernels of corn will become food ingredients both here and abroad. They’ll feed livestock, ultimately nourishing populations around the world that are becoming more prosperous and desiring higher-quality protein. They’ll be converted into fuel in the form of ethanol, which provides jobs for American workers, is better for our environment and moves the U.S. closer to energy independence.

In this crop is food, feed, fuel and fiber. Produced humbly and quietly by farmers who, for generations, have done the same. Benjamin Franklin said, “Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep.” All these years later, his words are true at a magnitude he surely never imagined.

With more corn in the U.S. this does not necessarily mean that farmers are making more money – the price of corn per bushel has fallen from over $7 per bushel in 2012 to just over $3 per bushel today. The price to grow corn has not fallen just the selling price. Farmers are not making more money just because they are growing more corn.

American consumers are putting together more meals at home — though not necessarily cooked meals — and eating fewer meals out, according to an a new study by the research firm NPD Group.

This makes for one of the biggest changes in eating patterns of Americans over the past five years, concludes the comprehensive study of more than 7,000 consumers, the 29th Annual Eating Patterns in America Report.

Visit us at www/fcfbil.org.

Remember we are farmers working together. If we can help let us know.