Patrick Kirchhofer (Photo courtesy of the Peoria County Farm Bureau)

After serving for nearly three decades as the unofficial “face” of farming in central Illinois, Peoria County Farm Bureau manager Patrick Kirchhofer is set to retire.

Previously the manager of the Stark County and Edgar County farm bureaus, Kirchhofer took the same role in Peoria in 1995, becoming known to the public through his appearances on local news programs discussing the ups and downs of planting and harvesting the region’s commercial row crops.

After his retirement from the Farm Bureau, which was celebrated during a May 21 reception at the PCFB office in Peoria, Kirchhofer plans to return to his family’s Effingham County farm to devote more time to raising crops and livestock. He’ll take with him decades of positive memories and lasting friendships harvested from both within and outside the Peoria-area agricultural community.

“I’ve always been active in the family farm operation. I was involved in 4-H and FFA and I had a flock of sheep. We still have beef cattle on the farm. My dad and my brother have the interest in the farm, and I help out by building fences and tending the cattle. We still grow corn, soybeans and wheat, along with hay for the cattle,” said Kirchhofer, who received a Bachelor of Agronomy and Crop Science degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987 after earning an associate degree at Lake Land College in Mattoon.

Kirchhofer said he’s looking forward to devoting more of his energies to the family farm, where he has helped plant 600 oak trees and more than 200 black walnut trees, along with shrubs and plants for pollinator and wildlife habitat.

“I really enjoy the wildlife on the farm and establishing the habitat. In addition, we try to use as many conservation practices as we can,” he said.

Since being employed by the Illinois Farm Bureau more than 35 years ago, Kirchhofer pointed to precision agriculture as tops among the vast changes in agricultural production practices that he has witnessed.

“Tractors are now equipped with GPS and computers, and there is auto-steer. Farming is more precise and exact as far as fertilizer usage and what a corn or soybean plant needs to receive. Everything is more fine-tuned as it relates to the equipment, applications, seed spacing and depth, and more compared to what it once was,” he noted.

He feels that the future of farming is still bright for young entrepreneurs, despite massive start-up and

Kirchhofer (left) visits with attendees during a May 21 retirement reception. (Photo courtesy of the Peoria County Farm Bureau)

machinery costs associated with the occupation and low current commodity prices paid for crops.

“Agriculture is always going to be here, and I think the future is bright. Looking down the pipe, I think ethanol has been the biggest boon to farmers throughout my tenure, and I see this continuing through increased demand for sustainable aviation fuel and biofuels,” said Kirchhofer.

“This wasn’t even on the radar when I started in the 1980s, but right now around one-third of the corn crop is used to make ethanol fuel and much of our soybean production is used for biodiesel. I’m hopeful this will sustain demand for corn and soybeans, and lead to more stable prices down the road.”

When asked what aspects of the job he would miss the most, Kirchhofer replied “without question the people, and helping people. There are always a lot of diverse questions that come into the farm bureau office, and I think that is what I enjoyed the most. You never know what you might be asked, about anything from gardening to fruit trees to crop production. I love to learn about new things, and if a question came in that I didn’t know the answer to I would research it myself to provide an answer and to educate myself.”

Kirchhofer will leave his post as PCFB manager at the end of May, though his replacement has not yet been identified by the Illinois Farm Bureau. The next manager is expected to be named from a field of trainees by the end of June. “It’s time to turn the reins over to someone else and let them enjoy this job for a while,” Kirchhofer said.