News

Conference to be held on risk management

The director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, Rodney Weinzierl, will focus on tillage and nutrient loss at the Illinois Sustainable Agriculture Partnership risk management conference in Sycamore, IL. 

Weinzierl says farmers are naturally interested in exploring emerging farming practices. Looking into new practices, he says, has led to an upward trend in farming systems that involve less tillage. Even with this being the case change can take multiple years to implement Weinzierl says.

“It almost always ends up being driven when you’re thinking about changing up a piece of equipment,” he says.

Weinzierl says farmers who produce a higher or lower yield after changing farming practices do not always make or lose a profit.

“Just because you have a higher yield or a lower yield doesn’t mean that it has a higher profitability per acre with a higher yield or a lower profitability with a lower yield,” Weinzierl says. “You know, it relates to the cost it took to get that yield.”

While moving to a different farming practice might help nutrient conservation, in some cases making long-term changes can be difficult. Jen Filipiak is the regional Midwest director for American Farmland Trust and a speaker at the conference. She tells Brownfield Ag News 60 percent of farmland in Illinois is leased out and usually on a yearly basis.

“The most common leasing structure in Illinois is a cash-rent lease that’s renewed annually,” Filipiak said. “That has implications for your risk in terms of trying to do a new practice that you might not see benefits with in just one year. And it has implications for how you work with your landowner to ensure that they know when you’re doing these things its good for their land and that’s good for you as a producer. You’re presenting yourself as a farmer that’s taking advantage of these things that improve the land.”

The conference will be held on Thursday.