Andrew Bowman is a fifth-generation farmer from Oneida, Illinois, in the western part of the state. Bowman, who is in the family business with his father, farms 1,100 acres of corn and soybeans, although they are also looking into new crops. “But corn and soybeans are definitely our bread and butter,” says Bowman.

The drought of 2012 was especially hard on the state of Illinois, with farmers there seeing some of the highest losses in the country. But there were a few counties in the western part of the state that escaped the worst of it. “In 2012, when everyone in Illinois was suffering under an incredible drought, we were in a garden spot,” said Bowman, who noted that while their yields were slightly down, the high commodity prices made up for it.

Bowman says that the worst year his farm has experienced in recent history was in 2005, which saw a very regionalized, yet extreme drought in western Illinois, with the rest of the Corn Belt being relatively unaffected. It was the first year since the drought of 1988 when farmers saw Spider Mites in their soybeans. Bowman notes that the low yields combined with the low prices that year was a double whammy for farmers in the drought area.

Read Andrew’s entire story here.