Family Farm and Food Bytes
Illinois Supreme Court upholds riparian landowner rights on non-navigable waters - State law prohibits a landowner with property adjacent to a non-navigable river or stream from using that waterway to cross the property of another riparian owner without their permission, Illinois’ high court has ruled.
The Illinois Supreme Court’s unanimous June 16 decision regarding Holm vs Kodat reaffirmed previous decisions from the 13th Circuit Court and the 3rd District Appellate Court. Illinois Farm Bureau submitted an amicus brief in the case supporting Kodat, a longtime Farm Bureau member who owns and farms land along the river.
Laura Harmon, senior counsel with Illinois Agricultural Association, said IFB filed the brief because the case’s outcome could have had a widespread impact on members.
What is Link Up Illinois? – Link Up Illinois” began in 2011 as an effort to build on the success of the LINK acceptance program at Illinois farmers markets and to increase access to fresh, healthy food. The program allows LINK card holders who spend $25 at farmers markets to receive a matching $25 that can be spent on market fruit
At least 775 farms directly benefit from Link Match, and as of the 2022 market season 86 different farmers markets and farm stands spread across the state participate in the program. Markets apply for funds before each market season, and can continuously apply for more if they run out. A majority of the award, 80%, must be used to fund the actual vouchers or match used by LINK customers while the remaining 20% can be used for implementation costs, like staffing and promotion.
Link Up Illinois has received millions of dollars from federal and state appropriators, with the Illinois General Assembly in 2021 allocating $1 million to the Healthy Local Food Incentives Fund for FY 2022 and FY 2023. Markets and farmers participating in the program saw a total of $639,691 in LINK sales and redeemed matching dollars in 2019. Last year, they collected a total of $2.243 million.
Robotic milking system featured at Dairy Tech Tour -Dairy farmers from around the state received an inside look at an automated milking system during this year’s Dairy Tech Tour organized by the Illinois Milk Producers Association (IMPA) and the University of Illinois Extension.
Beer’s Robo Holsteins Dairy Farm near Mascoutah in St. Clair County, this year’s host, opened its doors and provided live viewings of cows using its four Lely A3 Next robotic milkers. Nearly 100 people attended the event.
It takes about a week to 10 days to train the cows to use the robotic milkers on their own. The cows receive feed pellets as an incentive to step into the robotic milker, but only on a limited basis to avoid overdoing it.
The system has certainly improved milk output on the farm, with a current 90-plus pound tank average, up from 75 pounds, along with averages of 3.9% fat and 3% protein. The Beers sell all their milk to Prairie Farms Dairy.
Each cow wears a transponder with a pedometer so the system tracks rumination minutes, the cow’s temperature, its steps and if it’s in heat. The Beers milk between 200 and 220 cows in their facility.
Illinois acreage shift would be first in nearly 40 years - Illinois appears well positioned to maintain its recent run as the top soybean producing state in the nation.
While soybean plantings fell more than 2 million acres short of expectations in USDA’s June 30 acreage report nationwide, the Ag Department raised soybean plantings by 200,000 acres in Illinois compared to the March estimate.
The current projections place Illinois plantings at 11.2 million acres of soybeans, up 600,000 from last year when it produced 672.6 million bushels – the most of any state in the nation. USDA currently estimates Illinois farmers planted 10.7 million acres of corn this season, down 300,000 from last year.
It not only would buck a long-time state trend, but the acreage shift in Illinois was the opposite of the national trend. The U.S. soybean planting estimate declined 2.6 million acres from March to June to just 88.3 million acres. The national corn acreage estimate increased 400,000 acres to 89.9 million last month.
About Family Farm and Food Bytes: This is a collection of articles gathered from Illinois FarmWeekNow and other media sources and is designed to keep you informed as a member and leader within the Cook County Farm Bureau® organization. The articles summarized above are not intended to represent Cook County Farm Bureau policy or positions, but rather to provide members an idea of what is being reported regionally, nationally, and globally