News Progress

•November 11, 2015•

By Tyler Harvey
Douglas-Moultrie Farm Bureau Manager

As many of you are well aware, the 2015 harvest is mostly wrapped up for the year. With the weather we have had over the last two months, farmers have tirelessly been working to get the crops out before the weather breaks.

As of Sunday, November 1, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) has the Illinois corn and soybean crop at 96% harvested. This comes to no surprise with the early start most got this year.

Last year at this time, corn was at 74% harvested and soybeans where at 80% harvested. Even with the crops out, farmers will continue to work on fall tillage, tiling, and application of anhydrous ammonia when the soil conditions are appropriate.

On a state level, the Illinois Farm Bureau is gearing up for its annual meeting in Chicago the beginning of December. The annual meeting is where the grassroots policies that get brought up at a county farm bureau level throughout the year get voted on by delegates from around the state.

It is amazing to watch hundreds of delegates sit down to discuss and vote on so many policies that have their roots from a county level. There will also be an awards night when county farm bureaus will be recognized for their hard work from the year.  Read More

•November 4, 2015•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

For the first time in four decades, Illinois Republicans may well be players in the presidential sweepstakes at our March 15 primary.

In 1976, GOP primary voters gave Gerald Ford a big win in Illinois over Ronald Reagan and thus helped Ford beat the California governor by a nose later at the party’s convention. Ford went on to lose to Jimmy Carter that November.

Since then, the nomination has been locked up long before the Illinois primary. This time around is likely to be different.

First, the GOP has a number of well-funded candidates divvying up the likely votes, with most registering in single digit percentages in the polls.

Second, GOP National Committee rules have been changed for 2016 so that in primaries up to March 14, delegates are to be allocated on a proportional, rather than winner-take-all, basis.

This means that if Donald Trump or Ben Carson wins the most votes in a primary, with say 25 percent of the total, “The Don” or Dr. Ben would receive delegates only equal to about their percentage of the vote. As a result, no candidate will pile up most of those early state delegates.

The Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries take place in February, followed by the “Super Tuesday” or “SEC” primaries March 1, when most southern states go to the polls. Read More

•November 4, 2015•

Two regions of rural Illinois will see projects focused on business growth move forward, thanks to a total of $550,000 in low interest loans provided by USDA Rural Development through the local electric cooperatives.

Jo-Carroll Energy Inc., serving several counties in northwest Illinois, received a $447,155 loan to finance the construction of a potato handling facility that will support an estimated 45 jobs. Norris Electric Cooperative, serving multiple counties in south central Illinois, received a $102,845 loan to finance the construction of an office and warehouse for a seed and chemical sales business. Building the 9,600-square-foot facility will enable the business to begin hiring now and plan for future job creation over the next five years. Read More

•October 28, 2015•

By Mike Brothers
NP Managing Editor

In the world of Oh Brother it sometimes takes decades before I finally hit my forehead with the heel of my hand.

That is why my trip to hometown Harrisburg, Ill. for my 45th high school reunion was so important.

There were about 65 out of a class of 180 attending and another 20 on the “never going to come again” list.

So, after so long, I wondered what those who remember me at all, will remember about me. Because I remember odd stuff about many of these classmates whom I had known since elementary school.

Like our class president Kent Davenport- I remember him as the kid who lost a tooth in Mrs. Richmond’s first grade class at McKinley. He’s an attorney now, and we talked about why, as planners of the senior party back in 1970, we didn’t both end up in jail, but I still picture him with that missing front tooth.

Cindy Clore was there, and she and I go back to the sixth grade. She went to Dorrisville School but just lived a block from me.

I was sweet on Cindy back then so I was anxious to meet her again at our class reunion. Goofy me didn’t remember why we broke up when we did, so I went to the reunion thinking she would have fond memories. Read More

•October 21, 2015•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

The Economist magazine reported recently that Illinois is home to more radioactive, spent nuclear fuel than any state in the nation.

Should that concern us? Why else would this highly respected magazine have carried a story about it?

The problem is that the 9,000 tons of radioactive nuclear waste stored, supposedly temporarily, at reactor sites across our state has no place to go.

The nuclear industry and its ardent opponents agree on this much, if nothing else—all that waste should be moved to a permanent site. Ultimately this site will likely be somewhere in a sparsely populated location in the West, where some of the waste will continue to be lethally radioactive for at least 10,000 years!

I asked representatives of Exelon, our state’s nuclear energy generator, as well as skeptics and opponents of nuclear power what level of concern Prairie State residents should have for their safety on this matter: none, little, some, a great deal?.

I could have written the scripts in advance.

Pam Cowan, director of spent nuclear fuel at Exelon, said there is absolutely nothing to worry about. David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said we should have “little to some” concern, and David Kraft of Chicago, a longtime nuclear power opponent, weighed in that we should have “a great deal of concern.” Read More