News

Marketing questions remain as harvest picks up

Some Illinois farmers say marketing will be the biggest challenge of the 2024 growing season.

Mark Schweizer, who farms in Montgomery County, says he’s not sure what to do with the crop he started harvesting this week.

“Sell it out of the field and buy a call?”  He says, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I still ain’t got a really good game plan for that yet. It’s kind of hard to pull the trigger.”

Jeff Brown, who’s based in Macon County and started harvest a week ago, tells Brownfield he plans to hold onto most of his crop.

“We pretty well know we’re gonna have to store most of this crop because there’s just no incentive to pick it early from a marketing standpoint.”  He says, “So, kind of save a little bit here and there where we can.”

Schweizer says he’s thankful for the recent good years.

“We’ve been spoiled. Our crops have been really good the last five years, really can’t complain at all, so we kind of had the best of both worlds.”  He says, “So, you always got to plan ahead to when you’re going to have some down years.”

Both farmers are optimistic about their corn and soybean yields, however both are also pessimistic about any jump in commodity prices happening soon.

AUDIO: Mark Schweizer – Illinois farmer