My name is Taylor Hartke and I am currently a junior studying at Southern Illinois University majoring in Agricultural Communications and minoring in Agribusiness Economics. I hail from Teutopolis, Illinois where I was raised on my family’s diversified grain and livestock operation. The experiences I gained on the farm as well as through student organizations allowed me to develop a deep passion for serving the farm, the farmer, and the consumer. I am honored to have been named a 2020 Industry Immersion Scholarship Recipient. During both the kick-off tour this summer and my two days of job shadowing experience I was able to expand my knowledge about the grain and feed industry while networking with industry professionals. On December 21st & 22nd, I spent two days job shadowing at the Corporate Headquarters of Total Grain Marketing in Effingham, Illinois. Over these two days, I was able to watch exactly what happens when farmers call seeking advice or wanting to sell their grain. I saw first-hand what steps must occur in order for grain to be acquired, sold, and transported. I learned more about why markets were fluctuating on those given days which included wage stricks in Argentina as well as China’s continued purchases of US commodities. Since TGM is where my family, sells our grain, I found it interesting that half of their grain is transported by rail and half by truck. On those two days, I not only learned about each individual’s roles and duties, but I also helped with filing paperwork, writing the end of the day numbers, completing spreadsheets, and any other tasks that arose. Thank you to Kim, Lori, Austin, Wendy, Ken, and Tisha for allowing me to spend my two days there. Overall, this scholarship experience has broadened my knowledge, and I look forward to returning this spring for another chance to continue learning and experiencing what the industry has to offer.
- Taylor Hartke I worked two days at my local elevator, Tuscola ADM. I was able to witness how a train is loaded at our facility. Todd Wiessing talked so much about how important safety and culture is at his elevator. The second day I asked to be in the office. I was able to shadow Kenny Hadden and witness how the merchants handle customers. Mr. Hadden talked to me about how important a relationship with a farmer is! I feel blessed to have such a great elevator filled with wonderful people so close to home. I am thankful for the opportunity Tuscola ADM has given me the past couple of years.
During the Fall 2020 semester, I had the opportunity to spend two days job shadowing at Eric Howell Grain. I observed the daily work of Heather Howell who has multiple titles due to it being a smaller operation.
Eric Howell Grain is a grain elevator located in Benton, KY and they have two additional drop-off branches in Murray, KY and Stella, KY. They buy and sell white and yellow corn, soybeans, and wheat. Due to the historical increase in commodity prices at harvest time they currently have multiple farmers that are having to fill contracts below what the current cash price is today. Farmers have the opportunity to grow Enogen corn and Eric Howell Grain will pay a premium price per bushel for the grain. They’ll then sell it to the ethanol plants who will pay a higher price for the corn because it enhances ethanol production. Ethanol production is helping to lead us to a cleaner environment by helping to reduce carbon emissions. I was able to look at and calculate the shrink reductions costs and drying costs that are dependent upon the moisture percentage the corn is brought in at. Farmers in Western, KY are experiencing much higher moisture levels due to cooler and rainy weather. Lastly, I was also able to take a look at the end of the months reports that Eric Howell Grain has to turn in to their financial lender which is River Valley AgCredit. River-Valley AgCredit wants to make sure that they are making strides to pay-off their loan and keeping accurate records. In the 2019 end of year financial reports, I was able to review and analyze different key statements and components that were compiled together by a third party accountant. Hi everyone!
My name is Isaac Brockman and I am a junior Agribusiness major at Illinois State University. I am from Verona, IL, which is where my family farms corn and soybeans. It has been a blessing to have been selected for the GFAI Scholarship, as this scholarship has gone beyond just a one-time recognition. In the summer, fellow recipients and I were able to enjoy the information-filled and eye-opening Industry Immersion Tour. This experience allowed us to network, gain a wider perspective on Illinois agriculture, and understand how important the grain and feed industries are to the economy, infrastructure, and communities of Illinois. In addition to the Industry Immersion Tour, we recipients were fortunate enough to be set up with job shadowing experiences in the fall and spring. I was fortunate to be connected with FS GRAIN, which is based in Morris, IL, only about twenty-five minutes from my home. What made this experience even more valuable was that I was working towards earning an internship with FS GRAIN for next summer. At the main office, I was able to meet the staff and understand how they worked together for the function of the organization. I spent valuable time learning from Bryan Rader, Merchandising Manager, who explained the core business functions of FS GRAIN and how they utilize the many markets available in Northern Illinois. In the afternoon, I had the opportunity to travel to one of FS GRAIN’s container loading facilities, where I was able to learn how grain, especially soybeans, move efficiently from rural Illinois farms to Asian markets. Because of the awesome people at FS GRAIN and GROWMARK, I was able to earn and accept an offer for a summer 2021 GROWMARK Internship at FS GRAIN, shortly after the first job shadow day! Weeks later, I was called back for my second day and traveled to one of FS GRAIN’s modern rail-loading facilities. There, I was able to learn from Facility Supervisor Paul Hogan, who gave a great tour of the facility and was a great resource for questions I had about their operations. I was amazed by how quickly they fill railcars. It was also quite impressive to hear that the inbound grain can be dumped so quickly at this facility, which definitely provides value to farmers in the rush of harvest and even in the slower months. I had an awesome couple days this fall and look forward to continuing my GFAI Job Shadow experience at FS GRAIN in the spring! My name is Austin Ator and I from the town of Pittsfield, Illinois. Pittsfield is a small farming town and I consider myself blessed to have been raised in a community that is centered on agriculture. I was even more fortunate to have grown up on my family’s corn and soybean farm. This is where my passion and love for agriculture came about and I decided to pursue a career in the agriculture industry. I am currently a Senior pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Technical Systems Management with a minor in Agribusiness Management at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My goal is to use my degree after graduation to help make the farming process as easy as possible for farmers and aid in the further advancement of the agriculture industry.
This past year I was very fortunate to have been selected as a GFAI Scholarship recipient with I am beyond grateful for. I am honored to have been chosen as a scholarship winner through the Grain and Feed Association of Illinois and greatly appreciate all of the opportunities that the scholarship has and will continue to provide to me and the other recipients. One of my favorite parts of being a recipient was attending the Industry Immersion Tour during the summer of 2020. I really enjoyed the tour as it was a very eye-opening experience that gave me a better understanding of the grain handling process from beginning to finish. A specific memory of the tour was getting to tour the Peoria lock and dam. Most people would not think of the river system as part of the grain industry, yet it plays a vital role in grain transportation and having been able to go on this tour really helped to develop my appreciation of the expansiveness of the grain industry. The GFAI Scholarship program has also provided me with the opportunity to job shadow a local grain elevator during the fall and spring semesters. I look forward to completing my job shadows and sharing my experiences in the spring. My name is Miriam Hoffman and I hail from a diversified crop and livestock farm in north central Illinois, where my passion for agriculture began. As I became heavily involved in FFA during my time at Earlville High School, I began to see how I could build a meaningful career in the agriculture industry by serving both farmers and consumers. As of fall 2020, I am a junior at Southern Illinois University Carbondale studying agribusiness economics; I will be deferring both 2021 semesters to fulfill my year of service as a National FFA Officer, and look forward to learning and sharing more about the beautifully diverse industry of agriculture in that role. I am so grateful to have been selected as a 2020 GFAI Scholarship Recipient. This fall, I was placed with the Mound City CGB location in the southern tip of Illinois. I spent two days shadowing the facility manager, Jonathan Pounds, and learned about both barge and rail operations. We also travelled to the Birds Point, Missouri, location that Mound City oversees; the intersection of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers is an incredible sight and I was fascinated to learn of some of the history that made the location what it is. One of my favorite parts of the two days was walking out across the catwalk to see the barge operations over the river. The barge loading and unloading point is across the Illinois-Kentucky state line, so I visited two new states during my time at Mound City CGB! Mr. Pounds introduced me to a number of other employees at the location, from operations to accounting to grain merchandising. I experienced a broad range of potential opportunities in the grain industry and I am grateful for the experience provided by the GFAI. I look forward to returning with a blog post in the spring, where I will relate my National FFA experiences to the grain industry.
Hello All,
My name is Jacy Castlebury and I am a junior at Western Illinois University studying Ag Business with a minor in Economics. Over the past two summers, I have interned with Dearwester Grain Services, a grain elevator and feed mill based out of Golden, IL. While I was there, I was able to gain a lot of knowledge and hands on experience about both the grain and feed industries. My favorite part about working at Dearwester Grain was learning about the grain markets and how the futures and basis work. In my future, I want to pursue a career in grain merchandising, and this internship helped me to learn a lot of the important basics, like basis trading and contracting. This year, I was chosen as one of the 2020 GFAI Scholarship recipients. I am extremely grateful for the GFAI and the scholarship that they have provided me with to support my education. Along with the scholarship, I have had the opportunity to job shadow at Western Grain Marketing in Adair, IL. I was very impressed with how nice this facility was and how smoothly it was ran. After spending some time in the office, we took a tour outside. The morning that I was there, they were loading a rail car. I thought this was the most interesting thing that I had seen there, because I had never seen a rail car being loaded before. I was even able to go up to the top of the stairs and see how they loaded it from up above. Overall, it was a great day and I learned a lot from it. I appreciate Scott Sims and the rest of the crew at WGM in Adair for having me and taking the time during the middle of harvest to show me what they do! Hello all!
My name is Parker Karrick and I am from Patoka, Illinois which is in Marion County. I am currently a senior at Murray State University where I am studying Agriculture Leadership. This year, I was blessed with being chosen as a Grain and Feed Association of Illinois Scholarship recipient. This scholarship has already enabled me to network with new individuals, experience different aspects of the industry, and have hands-on experience. As part of my job shadowing, I had the opportunity to go to Tosh Farms in Henry, Tennessee. While there, I shadowed Caleb Haywood who is the Elevator Operations Manager at Tosh Pork. Mr. Haywood took the time to show me their elevator process and explained to me how they use it as a feed mill to support their hog operation. On my first visit there, I mainly just toured and learned about the company and on my second visit, I dove in and helped test the grain that was coming in. This is a task I have done in previous jobs, but it allowed me to see how similar tasks can be different depending on the location that you are in. Although similar, the growing season, crops, and other aspects of the agriculture industry have their differences from Tennessee to the rural area of Illinois that I am used to. Overall, this was a great experience for me to partake in and I look forward to returning to Tosh Farms in the spring! -Parker Karrick Hello All,
On September 29, 2020, I completed my first fall work day at Advance Trading, Inc. in Bloomington, IL. I spent the first few hours of the morning with Nathan Mangold. I was first given an overview of the territories and companies that ATI works with and Nathan showed me some of the commodity price tracking programs he utilizes to complete his job. I then listened in on a call that Nathan had with several operators at an elevator in Kansas, where they discussed the state of the markets and what to watch for in the days to come as the harvest season progresses. I then met Curt Strubhar and sat in on a virtual meeting with representatives from the NGFA, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and a railroad company that transports received grain. These groups discussed how the markets are conducted and how important the railroads are in transporting the grain. It was interesting to see how workers from different areas of the same industry taught each other about how these seemingly distant trades tie in together to accomplish the goal of getting grain where it needs to be. After lunch, I sat in on the weekly meeting with about 10 brokers at ATI. In this meeting, they covered the pressing issues that would be encountered in the coming week and throughout the harvest season. Much of the information involved supply and demand trends across the world and how they will impact us here in central IL. Overall, this was a very beneficial day for me as I again learned how widespread and yet interconnected the grain industry is. Greetings all,
What a whirlwind 2020 has been so far. This summer I had a great opportunity to intern with the merchandising team at Ag Processing Inc. (AGP) at their regional office in Eagle Grove, IA. AGP primarily engages in purchasing soybeans from regional and local cooperatives, as well as private elevators. With the merchandising team I purchased soybeans, sold hi-pro soybean meal, soybean hulls, and AGP’s dairy bypass protein, AMINOPLUS®. Additionally, I analyzed our daily hedging position, compiled plant reports, and assisted with truck dispatching. My supervisor for the summer was Shara Schmeling, the merchandising manager for the Eagle Grove regional office. I had the opportunity to sit down with Shara to gain some insight into her path in merchandising, as well as gather some advice. Shara got her start in merchandising through an internship she had while at Iowa State her junior year. She started with AGP in 2010, and first worked at AGP’s plant in Emmetsburg, IA before moving to Eagle Grove after a year. At each plant, she engaged in the procurement of soybeans and sale of finished soy commodities, developing relationships with customers, and engaging in supply chain management. Today, Shara is the regional merchandising manager for the Eagle Grove office, which oversees merchandising and logistics for the Emmetsburg and Mason City, IA plants as well. When I asked Shara to reflect on her time at AGP she stated, “My role with AGP is a very fulfilling one, I enjoy the company and the culture. I am part of a team who is very committed and work hard every day.” When speaking to those interested in a career in merchandising, she highlighted the importance of learning about the fundamentals of merchandising and gathering experience with a company to learn about the day to day activities. I appreciate the continued financial and interactive support of the Grain and Feed Association of Illinois. I had a great experience talking with members in February at the annual convention, and the willingness of these members to make time to offer advice to those of us interested in the industry. I wish you all a safe and successful harvest season, and I hope to see you in February. Kindly, Will J. Feucht |
Grain & Feed Association of Illinois3521 Hollis Dr. Archives
April 2024
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