5 Years of Dedication to Southwest IL Farmers
Andrea Kuehner didn’t set out to be a conservation specialist. She spent 13 years educating landowners about private water systems and the soil that connects them. But somewhere in that work, a pattern emerged: the most meaningful moments were always the ones where understanding clicked — where a person saw their land differently because of something she’d shown them.
When she joined PCM in 2021, that instinct found a new home.
Andrea serves grain farmers across Clinton, Madison, Monroe, St. Clair, and Washington Counties in Southwest Illinois. Her job, as she describes it, is simple in theory and earned in practice: show farmers what their own data says, connect them to programs that help their bottom line, and be the person they trust enough to call when they don’t know the answer.
Letting the data speak for itself
Early in Andrea’s time with PCM, she started working with a farmer running four tillage passes ahead of his soybean crop. Every year, the annual RAAP report she delivered him told the same story: power costs adding up, soil loss accumulating, and an operation working harder than it needed to.
Andrea showed him the numbers, walked through the economic cost tables, and kept the conversation going in year one, and again in year two…
By the third summer, he decided to switch to no-till ahead of soybeans. He said the crop looked good, and the decision came directly from the data he had reviewed with Andrea.
“Those are the moments that keep you going,” Andrea says. “When a farmer makes a change because their own numbers told them to — that’s the whole point.”
Meeting farmers where they are
One of the first things Andrea learned in this work is that no two farmers keep records the same way. One of the roles of PCM Specialists is to make data collection easy for farmers, so she took an adaptive approach.
Some farmers want spreadsheets. Some want a conversation at the kitchen table with her taking notes. Some need to be connected with another farmer who’s already tried what they’re considering, or a subject matter expert who can answer a technical question.
“I don’t always have an immediate answer,” she says, “but they’ll be assured I’ll find one.”
What five years means for Southwest Illinois farmers
Specialist tenure isn’t just a program milestone; it’s a direct benefit to the farmers in Andrea’s region. Five years means Andrea knows which crop concerns are specific to Monroe County soils. It means she’s sat across the table from enough farmers in the region to recognize what works and what doesn’t. It means the next farmer who calls her isn’t starting from scratch.
That depth of regional knowledge doesn’t appear in a brochure. It accumulates over time, one farm visit at a time.
If you farm in Clinton, Madison, Monroe, St. Clair, or Washington County and aren’t yet enrolled in PCM, give Andrea a call!
