104-year-old Illinois farmer retires

By HANNAH SPANGLER
FarmWeek

After decades spent working in agriculture, stepping away from farming was not a decision Donnie Peterson could make overnight.

“It wasn’t easy, but I realized it was time to let go,” said Peterson, who is retiring at 104.

Born in 1921, Peterson grew up on his family’s farm near Aledo. He began growing corn and soybeans with his father during the Great Depression in the 1930s. After his father retired in the 1950s, Peterson took over.

“I was pretty small when I started working on the farm,” Peterson said. “I didn’t know any other profession, so I just stayed with it.”

The Mercer County farmer still remembers buying his first piece of equipment, “an old John Deere tractor,” which he said was enough for him to get started.

Peterson acquired more equipment over the years and joined Illinois Farm Bureau in 1972. His last purchase came six years ago when he bought a 2018 John Deere 6155 tractor.

That tractor was among the equipment up for bid during an Aug. 27 auction run by Merit Auctions on Peterson’s farm. He told Jim Taylor of the RFD Radio Network he had been considering the decision for two years before moving forward with the sale.

“Two years back, I decided it was about time to start thinking of changing, so that sort of took time just to make that decision,” Peterson said.

Dale Jones, an auctioneer with Merit Auctions, said he had previously reached out to Peterson about a sale, but Peterson told him he wasn’t ready yet. This summer, however, Peterson called Jones and said, “It’s time to do this.”

“So that’s what we did,” Jones said.

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Selling his equipment and deciding to rent out his land is one of many changes Peterson has experienced during his farming career.

“I’ve seen a lot of things change in my lifetime,” he said, noting improvements in technology, seed and ag inputs. “Our quality of everything is so much better.”

But “modernization of farm equipment” stands out as the biggest change Peterson said he has seen throughout his more than 70 years as a producer. He started farming with horses and ended with a John Deere tractor.

Peterson said he was slower to adapt to new technology than other farmers. Even so, he embraced changes that helped move his operation forward and refined his management practices, including the use of GPS technology and reduced tillage.

“That’s the way things go; you have to go with the times of life and new ways of doing things,” he said.

This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.