By Gay Bowlin, Manager
Farmers in Franklin County have been very busy this past week – finally we have nice DRY weather and corn has been planted. Not everyone has all of their crops in but are on the downhill side of finishing up planting.
Gay Bowlin
Corn growers in Illinois and elsewhere are nearing the homestretch of their spring planting.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says 84 percent of Illinois’ corn crop is now in the ground. That’s 11 percentage points above the average pace of the previous five years. Last year at this time, just two-thirds of the state’s crop had been planted. That’s because one of the wettest springs on record got farmers in many states off to the slowest start in decades.
Roughly 60 percent of Illinois’ corn crop already has emerged, up 15 percent from the five-year average and nearly twice the national rate.
Nationwide, nearly three-quarters of the corn crop is planted.
Negotiations on Illinois Farm Bureau’s (IFB) Covered Farm Vehicle legislation, SB 3398, have led to a compromise proposal.
The compromise would allow owners of trucks with class B or D license plates to have their truck designated as a Covered Farm Vehicle through the registration of that vehicle. A $10 annual surcharge would be added, but only if the owner seeks to have his truck designated as a Covered Farm Vehicle. The Secretary of State would provide a designation on the registration card identifying the truck as a Covered Farm Vehicle when pulling a farm plated trailer or an implement of husbandry. This designation would signify to enforcement officers that the vehicle, when used in combination with a farm plated trailer or implement of husbandry, is a Covered Farm Vehicle.
SB 3398 would allow the smallest trucks—pickups and dualies—to qualify for the farm exemptions as larger trucks when pulling a farm plated trailer or implement of husbandry. However, it also preserves the small truck’s utility as a multi-use family vehicle because it does not limit the truck’s use to only farm transportation. Currently in Illinois, these smaller trucks do not qualify for the exemptions because they typically do not have a farm plate.
The designation as a Covered Farm Vehicle provides several benefits for farmers. It provides consistency with the exemptions from trucking regulations allowed for larger trucks that carry farm plates, helping to minimize confusion. Farmers who have larger trucks with farm plates would not have to meet differing regulations simply to operate their smaller trucks pulling farm-plated trailers or implements of husbandry, as they do currently.
Farmers with smaller trucks designated as Covered Farm Vehicles would also be exempted from medical card requirements thus reducing costs for farmers.
The exemptions also eliminate hours of service restrictions for operators of trucks designated as Covered Farm Vehicles and eliminates the need for pre-trip and post-trip inspections of the vehicle. However, it is still a good idea to do those inspections. This designation also extends the CDL exemption to employees of the farmer. By doing so, the employee would also be exempted from drug and alcohol testing for operation of truck-trailer combinations over 26,001 pounds, again reducing costs by eliminating this potential expense.
Because these non-farm-plated trucks do not currently meet the definition of a Covered Farm Vehicle in Illinois regulations, this compromise provides needed regulatory certainty and the ability to avoid additional costs for Illinois farmers operating smaller trucks pulling farm plated trailers or implements of husbandry.
Remember we are farmers working together. If we can help let us know.
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