It’s harvest season and area farmers are saying it’s a good year for soybeans and field corn.
“We have one of the best crops I’ve ever grown,” said Don Kenny of Blondehead Farms in Stittsville.
Kenny is also chair of the Grain Farmers of Ontario and said it’s been a bumper crop of corn across the province — especially compared to last year — when “the bushel weight was really light.”
“You’d put in the same amount of corn and it would weigh three tonnes less,” he said.
Since farmers get paid by the bushel, a high weight is desired.
And this year “everything was perfect,” he said.
Kenny said thanks to better technology, better genetics, and good weather, corn and soybean yields are above average — 160 bushels of corn and 47 bushels of soybeans per acre across Ontario.
And that has many silos already full but he said he isn’t worried.
“It’s normal to put pressure on the corn. It will look after itself,” said Kenny.
But it’s not all peaches and cream at Panmure Farms in Kinburn.
Farmer Brian Hudson said they grow corn but aren’t benefiting from selling it at high prices since their main operation is hogs and the price of pork is down.
“So putting expensive corn into cheap pigs just drives your bottom line down even further,” he said.
kelly.roche@sunmedia.ca
Kelly Roche - Storyteller 