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2009 a Challenging Year for Illinois Agriculture
The weather in 2009 was essentially bad luck for Illinois farmers, although grain prices held up.

The year was a wet one, which helped define 2009 for the state's agriculture industry. Rain delayed planting, growing and harvesting the crops. Some corn was still being harvested recently because snow got in the way.

It wasn't an entirely bad year though. Illinois Farm Bureau spokesman John Hawkins says one of the accomplishments of 2009 was winning state lawmaker approval to run 80,000-pound trucks on all roads. That went into effect January 1st.

"Illinois had a two-tier weight system for local roads and the interstate," Hawkins said. "You couldn't run the heavier trucks on the local roads where you could on interstates, so farmers were getting ticketed all the time."

Hawkins says 2009 wasn't a total washout as crop yields and prices were strong, which will help farmers deal with increased costs like higher fertilizer prices that went up because of increasing fuel costs.

That said, Hawkins believes most Illinois farmers will remember 2009 as the year that the weather simply wouldn't cooperate from spring, summer, fall and into winter.
01 02 10 by Newsroom
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