Last spring’s cold, wet weather — combined with a dismal fall — created hardships for many Lake County farmers. This spring, the coronavirus pandemic is adding new difficulties, including a decline in sales and prices, and loss of business.
But farmers, deemed essential during the pandemic, are resilient, said Greg Koeppen, executive director of the Lake County Farm Bureau.
For many corn and soybean farmers in the county, it’s business as usual as they check their seed inventory, hoping for a dry, warm spell so they can till the soil and plant toward the end of April. Meanwhile those who grow vegetables sold to farmers markets, restaurants and schools, are researching new ways to sell their wares and getting an early start on planting.
“We’ve got about 30,000 acres of farm land in Lake County,” Koeppen said. “The majority of that is field corn and soybeans.”
Market prices are plummeting, he said, and corn used in ethanol production is not in demand, as gasoline prices drop and fewer people drive.
“It’s too early to tell now what the long-term effect will be, but the longer we have some of these stay-at-home orders and social distancing orders, I think just like every industry it (the coronavirus) will have a large impact on farmers,” he said.
“Last year, we had one of the worst farm seasons in Lake County,” Koeppen said. “It was one of the worst harvests we’ve ever seen. We had a wet cold spring in 2019, and a wet and cold fall. Farmers were seeing a decrease across the board in northern Illinois in production of corn and beans. Some farmers didn’t even touch their fields.”
Bill McNeill, who runs a 500-acre farm that straddles Lake Villa and Grayslake, said he’s oiling his machinery, checking his seed stock and getting ready to plant.
“It’s not looking good right now,” said McNeill, who has farmed for more than four decades. “The virus has a lot to do with it,” he said, adding he still has grains left over from last year.
Losing money on corn
McNeill grows field corn and soybean. Most of his corn doesn’t get sold for ethanol, but rather to be processed to make starches and oils. Still, he’s losing money.
“Basically I call them, they tell me what they’re paying. It’s a lot lower than it was two months ago. We probably lost 40 to 50 cents by-the-bushel corn market in the past two months,” he said.
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McNeill said he’s hoping to break even this year. A lot will depend on the weather and how long the coronavirus pandemic lasts, he said.
He said he worries about dairy farmers. “They’re dumping milk in Wisconsin because they can’t get rid of it,” he said.
Lake County’s one dairy farm, Golden Oaks Farm in Wauconda, is doing fine, according to Koeppen. “Most of their milk goes to making cheese products,” he said.
But Lake County’s few hog farmers are struggling as processing plants are closing down, according to Koeppen. One of the largest, Smithfield Foods, which processes pork, doesn’t have enough workers in the plant, so they had to shut the plant down, he said. Workers there had contracted the coronavirus, leading to the shutdown.
It’s wait-and-see for hog farmers right now, Koeppen said, minutes after discussing the issue on a conference call with Illinois farmers. Whether consumers will have to pay more for certain meat products, or be able to purchase what they need, is a concern, he said.
Farmers markets
Another concern is whether there will be farmers markets in the region this year, Koeppen said.
“I heard from one farmer over the border in Wisconsin who has a vegetable stand in Wheeling (in the summer) that they’re not even going to plant any vegetables this year, and not open the farm stand,” he said.
Farmers markets are important to Lake County residents, he said.
The certified organic Prairie Wind Family Farm in the Prairie Crossing conservation community in Grayslake typically sells its products at a summer farmers market in Oak Park, said Jen Miller, who owns the farm with her husband, Jeff.
By now, she would have been asked to sign up for the market, she said. She’s heard nothing. Anticipating that scenario, the Millers started growing more crops in hoop houses earlier than normal, and have started a local market for the Prairie Crossing community.
“We pushed up that project we planned to launch in May. We launched a farm stand in March. We needed that revenue to start coming in,” Jen Miller said.
Roughly 60 people weekly are purchasing eggs produced on the farm, along with goat milk cheese, honey, mushrooms and other locally produced food, she said.
They pay over the phone and pick up their items on the honor system, she said.
The hope is to continue growing more so the rest of the Lake County community can partake, she said.
Miller is also co-director of Liberty Prairie Foundation with Nathan Aaberg. The foundation leases 94 acres of farmland to the Prairie Wind Family Farm and also sponsors a farm business development center, where those who want to learn organic farming can lease small parcels of land to gain experience.
Some of those farmers, who work on five acres or less, had been selling their produce to restaurants and schools, but are now closed due to the pandemic, Miller said.
Community supported agriculture
Some of them are turning to a community supported agriculture program, which the Prairie Wind Family Farm has been running for many years. CSAs give nearby residents the chance to purchase local, seasonal food directly from a farmer.
At Prairie Wind Family Farm, participants typically receive radishes, baby carrots, scallions and other early season crops in early spring. Come summer, they receive cucumbers, kale, bell peppers and broccoli, and in fall, their share often consists of acorn squash, potatoes and spinach.
In recent years, the CSA program was “kind of slumping,” Miller said. “But this year, we’ve seen a huge uptake in sales. I did a comparison of the last week of March in 2019 to this year and we’re up by 90 percent” for CSA orders, she said.
Their weekly and bi-weekly early spring shares are already sold out. Miller thinks that uptick is due to the pandemic. “There’s fear of going to the grocery store,” she said.
Shares are still available at https://www.prairiewindfamilyfarm.com.
Like other small farm operations, Miller has to ensure her workers remain safe and healthy. They’re keeping social distance while working and wearing masks among other practices, she said.
Koeppen said, “It’s a trying time. We worry about the mental health about our farmers and their ability to survive. A lot of them are one- or two-men operations. We want them to stay healthy.
“We tell them to hang in there,” he said. “Farmers are some of the most resilient people out there.”
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