(instrumental music) - Welcome to Business Forward.

I'm your host Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Patrick Kirchhoffer.

Patrick is the manager of the Peoria County Farm Bureau.

Welcome.

- Good to be here, Matt.

- I've got a lot to talk to you about.

This is gonna be a good one.

So let's get down to it.

First start with you.

Are you from here.

- Actually, I'm originally from around Effingham, Illinois.

The hometown is Shumway.

I grew up on a grain and livestock farm down there.

I'm still involved in the operation.

As far as actual farming goes, we grow corn, soybeans, whexat, and then beef cattle.

And I was involved in 4-H whenever I was younger, FFA, we had a flock of sheep, had some ducks running around the farm, a horse and a pony, you know, the barn cats, dogs.

So, it was a typical family farm.

- So, you are a farmer.

- Right, Oh sure I am.

- So, you run the farm bureau and you're also a farmer.

- Yeah, but I've got two brothers that farm with me and then my parents also.

And they all live down in that area.

So, it's fairly easy whenever all of us work together just as a typical family farm does.

Is that really, for someone who is not an expert in farming, is that typically how it is?

It's a family business and everyone in the family participates.

I mean that's how I just picture it, but that's what you're saying.

- Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

And a lot of times, you know, maybe the kids will have off-farm jobs before they become established or can work their way into the farming operation and take over after, the parents retire.

But y'all have to work together.

And, you know, that's the beauty of it, growing up together and working together and all of you bring different aspects, or talents to the operation.

Somebody may be more mechanically inclined.

Someone may be good at marketing, record keeping.

It's, you know, a Jack of all trades and master of none.

And so if each of you can bring, you know, a talent to the operation is gonna be more successful.

- I am not even going to look at my questions right now because I'm interested in.

So growing up, you started learning some things at a very, very early age.

I mean, you're almost like your dad or your mom, they're just mentors early on and just showing you the trade.

- Yeah and that's the nice thing about a family operation or business operation.

You can learn from your parents.

It's a lifelong learning experience and yeah, I mean I've been around equipment, you know, all my life.

And whenever I was five or six years old and you know, I was trying to help tussle bales around, pulling weeds out of beans.

Back then there was much more labor intensive compared to what it is today.

- I mean, people don't really, the average person may not know or think of this, but if you, technology is huge in farming and accounting is huge in farming?

- Technology has changed so much in the last 40 or 50 years.

Back 40 or 50 years ago, it was basically mechanics, but today it's a lot of it like electronics.

And just to precision agriculture, that's involved now is just unbelievable.

And it continues to change all the time.

Most planners now are probably 12 to 16 rows, and that's saying 30 inches between rows.

But 30 or 40 years ago, 50 years ago, it was probably six to eight row planters.

And it's so precise now that whenever someone is planting a field of corn or soybeans, they can adjust the rate of population on the fly while they're planting.

- [Matt] Oh, that's crazy.

- And it's GPS.

There's an information source on the equipment that beams up to a satellite and it can down get down to a quarter of an inch accuracy.

So, it's just incredible.

It can be done right now.

- That is incredible.

And do farmers or not, not all I'm guessing, but drones are being used now too.

- Well, to a certain extent, maybe not as much as what we thought they was going to be used five years ago, but a lot of like, as far as insurance companies filing claims.

See what the damage is out in an 80 acre corn field, whether there's hail damage or wind damage.

If you can utilize a drone and just fly over that field, you can see where the damage is and to what extent.

And you know maybe there's some insect pressure or a drowned out spy in the field.

It's a good way to monitor that.

But you know, at that point in time there's probably, a limited amount of things that you can do to salvage the crop.

- Oh, that's interesting.

We're gonna get back to what you're doing right now.

What exactly is the purpose of the Peoria County Farm Bureau or any farm bureau for that matter?

- Well, we're a non-profit farm organization and in Peoria County, we was formed in 1912.

So, we've celebrated a 100 years several years ago already.

And what it allows, it allows farmers to work together as a group and try to influence legislation or things that benefit the agriculture community and farmers.

They can learn from each other.

We've got a variety of committees that meet and sponsor programs for our members.

And yeah, it was just a great way that farmers can work together and have a unified voice for agriculture.

- Well, let me ask you this.

So, in terms of competition, knowing that there's, I guess always business or always a need for food or whatever it may be.

Does that lend to more collaboration or are there just, is it still a business where my farm is better than your farm and there's that competition there and where they don't work together?

- Well, there's always some competition, especially whenever real estate or land may come up for sale and two neighbors both want it.

I mean, there's gonna be competition there.

But I think as a general rule in the big picture, farmers work together, but there is competition as far as yield.

Who can raise the best crop or the most bushels per acre.

You know, have the cleanest fields, weed-free fields.

So there's that light hearted competition.

But whenever it boils down to it, farmers know that they have to work together because we're a very small percentage of the population now.

Only like one or 2% of the population lives on a farm and farmers are getting older.

The average age is around 60 years old.

So, we know we have to work together and we know that our industry is critical to our society.

I mean food it's basic.

And there's so many industrial products that are being made out of farm commodities.

It's a renewable resource, environmentally friendly resource where we can make products at a corn and soybeans, wheat.

And so many other types of grains that farmers can grow.

- Well, you said farmers are getting older.

Are there people that are younger that are not getting into the field so to speak or is that because there's a lot of fields right now that are in business that we're really struggling to get people that work force there.

So, if you take it outside of the family to somebody that grows up in downtown Bloomington or Galesburg or some say, "you know what?

I wanna be a farmer."

I mean, is that how it works or.

- Well, it's tough.

Tough.

I mean, usually you grow up on a farm and then you take over your parents' operation.

But anybody can get into farming but it takes a lot of money and land is not cheap, but there are some farmers that maybe do not have any children that's gonna take over the farm and they're looking for somebody to take over.

So, I mean, anybody can farm you just have to have the drive, you have to have the love for it and you gotta be willing to work.

- It's an interesting business because it's one that's always needed.

- [Patrick] That's right.

- Not every business is needed.

- You're right.

- So, little offshoot question here company like ADM, do they work with all the farmers in the Midwest and they just are just one big company and you have a role in helping collaboration with a company like that or is that not the role of farm bureau?

- Well, farmers, they will sell directly to ADM if there's an elevator in their location.

And, you know, I know the ADM plant here in Peoria, they made ethanol for a number of years and there's an ethanol plant across the river in Pekin.

So, farmers in this area, they're delivering grain corn specifically to those processing plants to make ethanol.

So, that may call their local grain elevator, whether it's, Ag-Lad FS or Akron Services in this area and get a bid on what the price is.

And then a lot of times if they deliver to those local elevators, then that local elevator will then bring it down to the processing plants.

Or you know, in our location, we've got a great resource here that Illinois River.

So, we can ship a lot of our product down the river and to send out to the export markets.

So, we're really blessed in this area and that we've got ethanol processing plants, we've got the river for exports, and usually farmers can get paid a little bit more in this area just because we've got those outlets for our grainxs.

- I never knew that.

That's interesting.

So, in more rural areas say Southern Illinois, You may not get as paid as much because there's.

- There's not any premium because you're gonna have your transportation costs to ship it just a little further and that costs money.

So, you know, if you're 40 or 50, or 60 miles from a resource that can use your product is gonna cost some additional resources and money to get that product where it needs to be.

- Interesting.

So at the farm bureau, do you have a board of directors or do you have a committee that.

- Yeah, county farm bureau, the way they're set up is we have a board of directors.

About every county farm bureau does.

And in Peoria County, we've got a 23 member board of directors, and we've got 19 townships in Peoria County.

So, we've got one director representing each township, and then we've got four officers that are elected at large.

And our board of directors, they meet once a month and we've got a variety of committees that do programs and, you know, they'll just discuss what we need to do for agriculture, for farmers.

And, we've got an Ag in the Classroom Program.

I mean, there's just a ton of things that we're doing locally here to benefit our members.

- Yeah, so Ag in the Classroom that goes back to my earlier comment, trying to cultivate potential new farmers or at least the interest in farming.

- Well, what our Ag in the Classroom Committee does in Peoria County and most other county farm bureaus, is we're just trying to educate.

We're trying to educate students, kids where their food comes from because they don't know.

I mean, if nobody tells them, they don't know where their food comes from.

So, in Peoria County, we're focusing on third through sixth grade students.

And before last year we was reaching around 250 classrooms in Peoria County alone.

Which was just phenomenal.

We've got about 10 volunteers, we've got an Ag coordinator and she'll talk to the teachers, and coordinate the schedules with the volunteers.

And they'll go in and do about a 30 minute presentation.

There'll be maybe a PowerPoint of 10 or 12 slides, and then an activity for the kids to do after that.

And we focus on seven topics each year, each school year.

So, we'll have one topic each month.

And so we'll maybe focus on pumpkin's or turkeys, or hydroponics, soybeans, or corn, beef cows, but there's a topic that we focus on each month.

And the program is free to any Peoria County School.

And hopefully, we can give the students just a general idea of where their food comes from and why farming, and agriculture is so important.

- Well, I know you have membership to the farm bureau.

So, if I wanted to join, I pay my dues and it's a small amount, like $20 or something like that.

But for the farmers that actually use, and I don't know if this is a fair statement, but as like in a lobbying arm or whatever, how it's looked at, do they pump in some extra dollars to be part of the club so to speak?

- Well, we've got two different types of memberships.

There's an associate or an A member.

And that annual dues is $20.

And then we've got the farmer member, which we referred to as an M or a voting member.

And in Peoria County that fee is $48, but it differs in every county that that fee does for the M members.

And the associate members, they're eligible once they become a member, they're eligible for some of our affiliate services like country insurance.

And we've got FS is an affiliate of farm bureau of Peoria farms.

We've got a country trust, we've got a credit union.

So they can seek the resources and the benefits of those affiliates.

Now, the M members, they're voting members.

We wanted to keep the control in the hands of the voting membership.

So, they can be on the board of directors.

They can be a delegate at the state annual meeting.

And then they get farm week, which is a weekly newspapers and out every Monday.

Actually, it's printed locally here.

And they get a newsletter, a monthly newsletter called "The Farmer."

And we develop that in house at the farm bureau and send that out.

And we've got about 1500 farmer members in Peoria County and around 11,000 associates members.

- I'm one of the 11,000.

- Well, thank you very much.

- Seed genetics, let's go over to something.

What does that even mean?

- Well, seed genetics.

I mean, it really came into play whenever Roundup ready soybeans came about in the mid 1990s.

And what that allowed farmers to do was spray Roundup herbicide on those soybeans.

And it would control the weeds and not kill the soybeans.

I mean, it was a real blessing and it made things extremely easy for about a five to 10 year time period for farmers.

Because all they had to do was spray Roundup and then that was it.

But it's become more challenging with resistant weeds.

- And so when you're talking about that, so I'm gonna use soy beans as an example.

So, my brother used to be on the Board of Trade he was in the soybean pit.

And I always wondered, I just never really dug deep with him, but so a farmer would use the Board of Trade to sell commodities, to sell their commodity.

Is that how that works?

Or like a stock exchange?

- Well, a farmer wears a variety of hats and one of those is selling his product.

And it's a free trade system.

So, a farmer can sell at the high for the year or he may sell it the low, of course he wants to sell it the high and the price is always changing on a daily basis.

And the Board of Trade determines the price for corn and soybeans.

- [Matt] Like any commodity.

- Just like it's like any commodity and a farmer.

Some farmers may want, may be more conservative and they may harvest their crop and then just sell cash the following year as they have a need for money, or they think the price is pretty good.

But other farmers may take on a little more risk and they may sell their crop in advance or sell the futures.

So, you know, right now during the summer, a farmer may want to commit some bushels to selling them at a certain price at harvest in November or December.

Or they could even sell next year in 2022.

So, and there's different tools that you can use, as far as commodities, there's things such as options.

And there's some places that you have to look at, but there's a lot of terminology that we can get into.

- Yeah, I mean it's a strategy.

- It is, it is.

And you know, it's a gamble.

Farmers don't need to go to the gambling boat because they're gambling every day, every day, every year with their crop.

And hopefully, they can just get the average.

And a lot of them do subscribe to commodity advisory services to give them a little guidance on when to sell their crop and make trends or yeah.

Trends or how much are their crop to sell.

So, yeah, I mean, they're good at a lot of things, but they wanna hire some people that are great at some things to make their operation better.

- You don't wanna leave money on the table, just like any other business.

- [Patrick] That's right.

That's right.

I remember my brother always saying something, there was such a swing because there was soybean rust.

What does that even mean?

- Well, soybean rust is a disease that infect soybeans during the growing season.

And there's a lot of different diseases and insects, and weeds that hamper soybean production and soybean yield and rust is one of those that can impact yield.

And if there's a problem such as that probably the yield is gonna be less and that's gonna drive up the price because supply supply is probably gonna be less at harvest.

So, if there's less to sell, that's just gonna drive the price up.

But you know, a lot of that is anticipation, especially during the growing season.

You never really know until you get out there and harvest the crop.

But, you know, they're continuing to look at their crop during the growing season and assessing it and trying to determine.

Well, what's my crop gonna be like, and, you know, do I need to have a rescue treatment of a fungicide or insecticide, or anything else that can attack the crop?

- I know these are simple questions to a farmer but is having a farm in middle Illinois an advantage because of the soil.

The soil is better than other soil in other parts of the United States?

Is that what?

- It is, I mean, here in the Midwest through Central Illinois, and you get out in Iowa and maybe Southern Minnesota and parts of Indiana, Ohio.

We've got some really good soils.

And through Central Illinois, our soils are typically darker in color, which means they have a higher percentage of organic matter.

Whenever you have a higher percentage of organic matter, and that's gonna hold nutrients better, and your water capacity is gonna be higher.

If you've got an organic matter percentage of say four or 5%, that's great.

But a lot of the lighter soils that temper type soil is what we call them.

They may have two or 3% organic matter or less, and they just can't hold the nutrients, or the water like a darker soil can.

So, in Southern Illinois and some places that are farming really light colored soil there often say that you're going in there one week away from the drought, because the soil just can't use the moisture.

- I wondered how that was.

- But that's one reason why farmers are trying to trend more towards a no-till, conservation tillage, utilizing cover crops.

That provides conservation practices.

It keeps the soil in place.

It shades the soil.

So it keeps the soil cooler.

So evaporation isn't gonna be as much if you have something covering the soil.

- So cover crops is that self-explanatory, you're covering the soil, or what does that mean?

- I mean Cover crops has actually been around a long time, for decades, but we're just starting to get back into it a little bit more.

Back 70, 80 years ago farmers basically grew cover crops because they was planting oats for the horses or clover to feed as hay.

But now cover crops we're referring to a seed that is drilled or planted or flown over a field into soybeans or corn.

So, that can either be applied maybe in late August or early September, whenever the crop is still there, you know, you can fly it on or, there's some equipment that you can drive.

It's a high clearance type of machine.

- I wondered what those were.

- And it'll have drop down cedars that'll seed right at the soil surface into a standing crop.

But typically farmers will wait until after the crop is harvested, whether it's corn or soybeans, and then go in and plant cereal rye is your most popular cover crop.

Because it's fairly aggressive, it germinates quickly in the fall.

And it'll survive the winter.

So it's sort of like winter wheat, you sow it in the fall.

And then it goes into dormancy over the winter, and then it'll come out of dormancy in the spring, and continue to grow in the spring.

But there's grasses such as cereal rye and there's rye grass.

And there's barley that can be used as a cover crop.

There's a legume such as clovers.

There's brassicas, such as radishes and turnips.

And a lot of times there's a combination of those seeds too that farmers can use.

They can either plant just one monoculture, which is cereal rye, or else they can combine maybe 5, 10, 15 different species together to get that variety that they want.

- It's really amazing.

If you think about what we've just talked about, there are so many aspects to the business that you.

I never even think about it.

And then as we were talking, I'm sitting here thinking about what you had said earlier, the marketing piece, the accounting piece.

Having to know your numbers to know whether to sell or gamble, or it's really an amazing business if you think about it.

- It is.

It's a wonderful life growing up on a farm.

I just wish every child or every kid had that opportunity, and we need to get our hands back into the soil a little bit more and kids need to garden and grow plans.

They need to understand how a plant grows and you know just the basics of where food comes from.

- And that education that you're giving the kids to that helps.

I mean, my kids have gone through those programs through the schools and Peoria Public Schools and so on.

And so I think those really help and really just kind of get an idea of what farmers do.

Because if you drive anywhere in Central Illinois, you pass the farms, and you just don't even think about it half the time.

They grow corn, wheat, corn.

I mean, that's a kids simple mindset.

But it is a whole lot more than that.

Well, this was a fun topic.

Peoria County Farm Bureau, you have a lot of different partners.

You have a lot of different farmers that you work with.

In my business that I'm currently in.

I have a few farmers on our board and so family farms and I've just really been talking to them a lot lately just to figuring out, just interested.

I don't know why, just very interested in how that business really unfolds and how important it is to everything that we do.

Not just food wise, but just everything.

So, we appreciate it.

I'd like to thank Patrick Kirchhoffer for joining us tonight.

Thinking we're gonna need to do this again.

I learned a lot.

I'm Matt, George, and this is another episode of Business Forward.

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