Creative Marketing Benefits Illinois Farmers By JERRY COSENTINO, Illinois State Treasurer

Farming, as the saying goes, is everyone's bread and butter.

Whether it's the bread of an ironworker on the south side of Chicago or the butter of a grain elevator operator in Central Illinois, lives and jobs depend on the economic health and welfare of the Illinois farmer.

Illinois government has shown its vital interest in the survival of agriculture in Illinois. The General Assembly has, in its wisdom, revised the method by which farmland is assessed and taxed. In times of economic recession, state government has provided low-interest loans so that farmers could get their crops in the ground and their grain to market. As state treasurer, I initiated $150 million in farm relief when the 1988 drought devastated much of our state's crop production.

Most recently, our office entered into an agreement with the First National Bank of Chicago to launch a creative, $20 million program through which we will aggressively market Illinois farm commodities.

In the first phase of FARM Illinois (Financing Agricultural Retail Markets for Illinois), Mexican importers will purchase more than $10 million in corn from Decatur's Archer Daniels Midland Corp.

Through the Export Guarantee Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture assumes the credit risk and allows American banks — in this case First Chicago — to provide more favorable credit terms than would be normally available to banks in the importing country.

The lower cost of financing will stimulate increased sales of U.S. commodities to foreign countries.

Under provisions of the program, the treasurer's investment is 100 percent guaranteed by the First National Bank of Chicago. Further, the return on the treasurer's investment is, in most cases, higher than other active treasurer's state investments.

FARM Illinois is a step to a new plateau. It is the first step by an Illinois state treasurer to actively expand and enhance foreign markets so that our farm products can be sold at competitive levels.

If proven successful — and we have every reason to believe it will be — the program may eventually be expanded to include other Illinois farm commodities such as soybeans, pork and beef. We are limited only by our energies and our marketing strategies because I am prepared to expand our investment beyond the $20 million level.

Hopefully, we will soon find ourselves marketing FARM Illinois to include such sales as soybeans to Korea, Illinois wheat to Brazil and home grown pork bellies to Eastern Europe.

Agriculture is a critical component of our economic base. I am pleased to take this first step toward expanding our farm markets in foreign countries. •

May 1990 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 5