Local farmer weighs in on this year’s harvest

It’s harvest time, something Roy Mulder has become well acquainted with in his 25 years of farming full time.

He farms corn and soybeans near Firth.  The amount of rainfall we’ve had lately has dampened how he’s able to harvest.

“We cut beans at about an inch–and–a–half off the ground,” Mulder said.  “And if mud is an issue, then it will just push and it just doesn’t work really well.  It’s got to be dry.”

And extra moisture swells the corn.

“It’ll make the corn heavier, which we sell it on it weight,” Mulder said.  “And if it’s heavier, we have more bushels.”

But the heavier corn is more difficult to harvest.

Regardless, he said this is nothing out of the ordinary.

“We go through extremes,” he said.  “We’re either extremely wet or extremely dry and I would say this is about an average year where everything’s pretty good.”

He also weighed in on recent tensions in trade relations.

“China is a big buyer of beans and since they’re kind of out the market or out of our market for beans and it’s effected our price.”

But he said he thinks it will help farming markets in the long run.

“That’s something that we got to go to, I think, to get to a better place.”

Mulder said years have taught him to have patience and it’ll all get done.  Difficulties with the weather happen every year and that you just have to deal with it.