<b>By TIM ALEXANDER<br>
Illinois Correspondent</b> </p><p>

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Though farmers who were owed money by a defunct Iroquois County grain company have been sent payments by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA), more investors in Fulton County are worried the contracts they signed to deliver corn to the shuttered Central Illinois Energy (CIE) ethanol plant may require them to continue supplying grain to the plant, if it opens under a different ownership group.<br>
Farmers delivered 1.5 million bushels of grain to Central Illinois Grain, the grain-handling arm of the $130 million unfinished CIE plant located four miles south of Canton. After financial problems surfaced and several contractors filed mechanics’ liens against the plant, IDOA moved to suspend the company’s grain-handling licenses.<br>
Ownership voluntarily surrendered the licenses late last year and IDOA sold the grain to Cargill in order to reimburse more than 200 farmers, most of whom delivered grain to the plant on a price-later basis. IDOA spokesman Jeff Squibb told news sources it will take another month or so to finish hauling away the grain, which has an estimated value of $6 million.<br>
The farmers are now awaiting reimbursement.<br>
If the plant is finished under new ownership, however, some farmers are concerned they may have to deliver grain for four more years under terms of their contracts, which call for them to be paid for their grain when the plant becomes profitable.<br>
“We haven’t lost anything yet, compared to what we’d lose if we had to deliver corn for the next four years and not get paid for it,” one farmer, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Peoria Journal Star.<br>
Robert Lawless, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said the contract that farmers signed could become a “thorny” issue.
“The farmers could have to continue supplying the corn. There’s no question they need to hire an attorney,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s not going to be in anyone’s best interest to bankrupt these farmers.”<br>
On Jan. 18 the IDOA issued a news release saying the department mailed checks totaling $3.5 million to 60 claimants who had stored grain in A-Way, Inc. elevators (not related to CIE) or had sold grain to the company but had not been paid when its Crescent City and Onarga elevators closed Aug. 27.<br>
“It was important to us to process these payments as quickly as possible,” said Chuck Hartke, IDOA director. “With spring planting approaching, farmers cannot afford to wait to be paid for their grain.”<br>
The checks are drawn on the Illinois Grain Indemnity Trust Account, a state fund that protects farmers in the event of grain elevator closure.<br>
The company was shut down after IDOA warehouse examiners found “significant financial deficiencies” and suspended the company’s grain dealer’s and warehouse licenses.<br>
The company was later sold to Wheatfield Grain of Wheatfield, Ind., but the purchase did not include A-Way’s debts.<br>
IDOA was forced to liquidate the company’s grain assets to help pay farmers with insured losses. $700,000 was raised from the sale of the grain, with the remaining $2.8 million covered by a withdrawal from the Grain Insurance Fund.<br>