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Prevented planting is a reality for many farmers

An Illinois farmer says he’s worried he won’t get a corn crop planted by June 5.

Rob Shaffer says for the first time in his 25 years of farming he’s considering the prevent planting option.

“It’s truly a reality this year considering I have no corn in the ground at all, I have zero corn in, and I would guess my area might be 30 percent planted at best,” he says.

He tells Brownfield they are getting untimely rains about every other day.

“We’re going to try to do everything we can to get that done by June 5^th, otherwise we start losing one percent of our crop insurance guarantee per day after that date, so that’s going to come down to whether we take prevented planting or not,” he says.

Shaffer raises corn, soybeans, and Angus cattle in El Paso, Illinois. He is also an American Soybean Association director.