After no rain in February, Ogle County farmers saw a steady rain and heavy snow fall onto thawed ground in recent weeks as they approach planting season, Ogle County Farm Bureau Manager Ron Kern said.

The area has been behind on moisture in recent years and recent drought maps still show the state and Ogle County as slightly dry.

“We finally got some rain here,” Kern said March 25. “It was very welcomed. Hopefully we get some more this week and some regular rain between now and the middle of April and get some topsoil recharge so we can get planting in a timely manner. Between the rain a couple weeks ago where we got 1-2 inches and that seven inches of snow that equates to an inch of rain over 2-3 weeks, that really helped.”

Kern said Ogle County farmers have started spring work, including applying anhydrous ammonia and doing other field preparation. Planting won’t begin until soil temperatures are above 50 degrees, likely in the next few weeks.

“Most farmers try to get corn planted by May 15,” Kern said. “Studies say that if it’s planted after that, yields start to suffer a bit. After that, farmers can go all the way up to July 1 before getting beans planted. Last year, a lot of farmers planted beans early and a lot of them actually did pretty well.”

Farmers have booked all of their inputs for the year and are currently getting seed, fertilizer and chemicals delivered, Kern said. Amid the war in Iran, fuel and fertilizer prices have risen in recent weeks. Natural gas is used in the manufacturing of commercial fertilizer.

Rising fuel and fertilizer prices have come at a time when farmers are also seeing depressed commodity prices that are “basically below break even,” Kern said.

“Now if you start increasing the cost of the inputs, farmers are all of the sudden losing $40 an acre rather than $30 an acre,” Kern said.

The OCFB manager said he could see some farmers cutting back on fertilizer this year. Fuel use will be tougher to limit, unless farmers utilize a no-till approach. Fuel prices will affect some farmers more than others depending on their setup, Kern said.

“It seems like it never gets cheaper to farm,” Kern said. “With the fuel and fertilizer markets, it’d be nice to let the market stabilize and not have outside forces drive the cost and let supply and demand work. But when you have anomalies like wars or embargoes, they all throw the market for a loop.”

Kern said he’s not optimistic about the current state of the commodity market for Ogle County farmers’ crops. He said federal tariffs have negatively impacted trade markets, namely South America selling more soybeans to countries like China.

While the U.S. remains the global top exporter of corn, the impact of tariffs on the soybean market may be permanent, Kern said.

“Getting those markets back after you lose them is usually extraordinarily difficult or impossible,” Kern said. “We can throw all the government money we want at farmers to try to make up for it. But it’s nothing compared to having the opportunity to access a market and sell into that market. Because of what’s gone on in the past year, we’ve pretty much waved goodbye to a lot of the markets we had.”

Soybeans cost less per acre to plant than corn does. Kern said that when local farmers try to save on inputs by planting soybeans, they’ve been met recently with the situation of not having a market to sell them into.

More domestic uses of corn and soybeans may be an answer to the current commodity market situation, Kern said.

“I’ve been an advocate for years of including money in a Farm Bill for research on expanding domestic markets for crops,” Kern said. “My pleas have fallen on deaf ears. If we did go to an E-15 year-round ethanol fuel and get this whole sustainable aviation fuel fiasco straightened out, it’d probably help out a lot with the corn market.”

The federal Farm Bill allocates funding for crop insurance, disaster assistance and conservation programs for farmers. The current Farm Bill, passed in 2018, has been extended for a year three times and work is again underway on a new one, Kern said.

The most important part of the Farm Bill is the establishment of a crop insurance program so farmers can mitigate risk in the case of disasters such as flooding, Kern said. Congress subsidizes some of the crop insurance premiums farmers pay to insure their crop.

“It gives farmers the opportunity to manage their risk,” Kern said. “So instead of having 100 percent crop failure in the case of a disaster, they’re able to recover 70-80 percent of it. The farm bill just got marked up and is at least starting to see conversation. I’m not sure of its status. But at least we’re starting to finally see it get onto the treadmill. We’ll find out in the coming months if it passes muster.”

A new Farm Bill and input costs are the current top issues in agriculture, Kern said. He has his own wish list for the coming months.

“Give me some rain, end the war in Iran and pass a new Farm Bill and I’ll walk out of the door of the farm bureau a happy man,” Kern said.