Illinois Farm Families Blog

The Illinois Farm Field Moms had the wonderful opportunity to tour a Hog Farm at the Old Elm Farms in Sycamore, IL (February 23, 2013) 

Give them a label-Not a name

"Don't get attached, the hogs are our income and food." This is the advice Steve Ward, president of Dayton Farms of Sycamore, IL, gives his two children Sarah and Dayton, when a new litter of piglets are born.

It's in the Marketing

Of course it's in the marketing. Marketing is key; it is what sells the product. So from that said did you know that hog producers never give hormones to their hogs, EVER! So why does that packaged pork you just picked up today at the grocery store say NO Hormones Added? To clarify Steve Ward and other hog farms like his just are the wean to finish farms and have nothing to do with the label you see in the grocery store. The final destination (or grocery store) of each of Steve Ward's hogs is unknown to him. The big companies who sell the finished product may add that "No Hormones Added," label. According to the Ward family this is just a marketing scheme to make the buyer believe they are getting a healthier piece of pork for their family.

To Market to Market

To buy a fat pig. Two hundred and eighty pounds that is.  Free Range, Barnyard, Organic Pork? You might want to re-think this option next time you buy your pork at a grocery store especially if you are on a budget. Tim Maiers who works for the Illinois Pork Producers Association questions what exactly makes that choice of pork healthier. Tim, along with Steve Ward and his father John Ward, president of Old Elm Farms, described the possible uncleanly conditions of hogs raised in the outdoors and the added cost of grain needed to keep the hogs warm in the winter(hence the markup in price at the supermarket). We learned that these hogs have to share their living space with other rodents and birds that may carry diseases. Hogs raised inside such farms like the Ward Family Farm provide a more controlled environment which means less grain is needed for consumption since it is all climate controlled. The hogs living conditions inside the farm are very clean and the hogs definitely have more roaming room then I previously envisioned. However, what this all comes down to are choices for the consumer. Steve and Tim stress nutrition-wise, free range or not, they are both the same.

Five Key Observations

I’d like to recap my experience with five things that I learned and found to be very interesting.

1. The children who are born and raised on the farm willingly take on the responsibility at an early age to help their parents with much of the work on the farm.
2. The hog manure never goes to waste but instead is plowed into the corn fields.
3. Farmers recycle almost everything.
4. Hogs are killed by means of gas.
5. Old Elm Farms got its name from the oldest living Elm tree in Illinois. It lived to be 375 years old until it was cut down due to Dutch Elm Disease.

Christina Lee
LaGrange Park

February buzzed by, literally and figuratively.   Granted it has three less days than other months and it’s usually plagued by clouds, snow or rain and chilly winds, so I suppose if it buzzes by there’s not much to miss.

But this February started buzzing for me from the beginning.  It must be all this focus on food and farming that has my senses on high alert for buzz words.  There is no shortage of them in food advertising as I mused on in my blog post “When Buzzwords Stop Buzzing”. 

The second week of February I flew to NYC and joined celebrity chef Danny Boome on a satellite media tour. We talked with television and radio morning show hosts about buzzwords, the ones we see most often on restaurant menus and on grocery shelves – organic, hormone-free, grass-fed, local and natural. Click here to watch the video.

A week later, I got an email asking me if these buzz words mean different things to a farmer than a consumer. I think that’s part of our problem in attempting to converse about food and farming. Definitions can be so ambiguous and seem to change depending on the person doing the defining.

As a farmer and a consumer I define organic, hormone-free and grass-fed as the how of raising a crop or caring for livestock. I think some people use them to define the nutritional content of food, however as Chef Danny said in our interviews the nutritional value of food depends largely on how it is prepared versus how it is grown.

Local, to me, is my community, my little niche in Northern Illinois.  It is the farms, the towns, the neighbors (who live on the other side of our square mile country block).  It is the businesses we patronize and organizations we support.  Locally grown for me is what I’ve found in my backyard garden or my mother’s garden and locally grown meat comes from farms of other family members.  But, local can also mean purchasing food that has been raised in a certain mile radius of a store or restaurant.  What’s the magic radius?  I don’t think anyone can say for sure.

Natural is probably the hardest to define.  Webster says “existing in or produced by nature” and to me that is farming.  We exist in nature; have learned how to reap its rewards, survive its challenges and how to make our lives better by caring for the environment better.  Are we perfect in this relationship? Absolutely not.  Are we improving every day?  Most certainly.

So, are the definitions of buzz words even clearer than mud now?  Yea, for me too.  I guess this is why this movement to converse, to respectfully listen to the opposite opinion, ask questions and broaden our scope of understanding is so important. 

This year’s group of Field Moms has already tackled some buzz words. I can’t wait to read more about their adventures and the buzzwords they try to define.

Katie Pratt

Grand Prairie Farms

Being a typical mom who wants to feed her family well, I was very excited when our Field Mom program officially started on February 23. I was determined to find out myself how our food is produced and by whom. It is not hard to panic in today’s environment when it comes to food production. Should I buy organic? Is the meat safe? Where did the meat come from? How do I buy locally produced food? And what does politics have to do with food production?

I joined the other field moms and a few farmers on February 23 when we started our year together, all full of questions. We had a lot of them answered on the bus on our way to Sycamore. Deb, Pam, and Jim were able to give us very concrete background information on farming in Illinois today.

While we were mostly talking about pork production, it was also obvious that all farmers have a lot in common: family farms are still the most common form of farming in Illinois where 94% of all farms are family-owned. Children join their parents from young age and learn to work on the farm. Some of them enjoy it and want to stay on the farm, some of them want to leave as soon as they are done with high school. But the common theme was the children’s attitude to work and their pride in growing up on a farm.

Our visit to the Ward family’s pig farm could not have been more informative. The farmers, John and Steve, were willing to answer all of our questions about pigs’ lives from birth to the slaughterhouse. How the pigs are fed, whether they are given antibiotics (only for medical reasons), are they given hormones (no), etc. We also had a long discussion on GMOs, why a farm is or is not organic (requirements on available space to access to organic feed), corn and soybean crops, the needed equipment, and the availability of land in Illinois where subdivisions are creeping closer and closer to farmland.

On our tour of the pig sheds, Steve was once more willing to answer all of our questions about the pigs. Why are the pigs kept inside (controlled environment, health and nutrition of the pigs); what the pigs eat (corn, soybean meal, bakery products); and how you make sure all of the pigs are doing well (an experienced farmer sees signs immediately). Yes, there is a smell in the sheds, but the pigs were surprisingly clean and they are able to move around. There were absolutely no signs of animals that had been mistreated (I expected chewed ears and tails as signs of stress).

My first visit to an Illinois farm (or any farm in the U.S.) was eye-opening. The amount of work, investment and time needed to farm is enormous. My guess is that even though there are differences between farms, the basic work and commitment to a lifestyle is the same for all of them. One of my reasons for joining the Field Mom program was to be able to tell my children where our food comes from and we have now been able to have several discussions on pigs and meat production in general. I’m looking forward to our next visit and learning about other farms.

I had an extremely informative day at the Ward farm, thanks to both generations of the family!

Five things I learned on our trip to a pig farm (there would be many more, but here are the first five):

• The price of farmland whether you buy or lease in Illinois is very high. It is hard for farm families to be able to buy more land to support more than one family.
• The life cycle of a pig from birth to slaughterhouse. I had no idea about the time it takes for a pig to grow to market weight, etc.
• The tour of the buildings where the pigs are raised was important. Heating/air-conditioning, cleanliness, etc. were important pieces of information.
• Information on how the pigs are slaughtered was informative and useful.
• Information on the use of hormones and antibiotics was useful.

Tanja Saarinen, Oak Park
Field Mom

Last Saturday was a busy day at our farm. We hosted 16 Field Moms from the Chicago-area for a tour, showing them how we raise pigs. The moms asked a lot of great questions, one in particular I often get asked is: 

The term organic speaks to a particular method used to farm. Generally speaking, pork that is certified organic comes from pigs that never receive synthetic vaccinations or antibiotics, are provided access to the outdoors, and meet animal health and welfare standards. The animals eat feed that is organic as well, meaning it is grown without most commonly-used synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. (There are some fertilizers and pest control products organic farmers can use on their crops.)

How is that different from my pigs? On my farm, we meet or exceed health and animal welfare standards too. We also use farming practices that include options like GMO crops and giving medicines when needed. For example, the feed my pigs eat consists mostly of corn and soybeans which may or may not be the same feed used in organic farming. On my farm, some of the grain comes from GMO seeds. Using GMO seeds and biotechnology actually allows me to use fewer chemicals on the plant as it grows, making less of an impact on my land and making it safer for the consumer and the farmer as we handle fewer chemicals. (If you want to know more about GMOs, click here.)

While on our farm, we do our best to keep all our animals healthy throughout their lives. Just like we give our kids vaccines to prevent illness and disease, the pigs on my farm are vaccinated early in their lives to ward off common illnesses. I’m in my barns every day monitoring the health and eating habits of the pigs. Like with my kids, I can tell by looking at their eyes and noses if they aren’t feeling well. If that’s the case, I pull that pig aside and, with my veterinarian, decide how to get them healthy again. Sometimes that means giving them medicines, like an antibiotic. If I do give them an antibiotic, I follow strict label directions and make sure that the animal doesn’t go to market until all the medicine has cleared their system. The pigs from my farm are marketed under the Farmland® label. Once my pigs arrive at the Farmland plant, like all meat, they are inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food Safety Inspection Service. I feel good about the pork I raise; my family enjoys it regularly.

Consumers today can choose to pay more for organic meat, but I hope they know it’s not safer or more nutritious than the pork from my farm. I’m confident the pork I raise is safe and healthy and contains no antibiotics. By the way, the moms also asked me what our family’s favorite cut of pork was – it’s the tenderloin. Here’s a recipe you can try tonight.

I hope I’ve helped answer the question. Post your thoughts and comments below and we’ll continue the conversation.

Illinois family farmers are opening their doors to give 20 urban and suburban Chicago-area moms a “peek inside the barn” to see for themselves how their food is grown. These moms will serve as Illinois Farm Families’ “Field Moms,” and will tour six Illinois farms between February and November this year for a firsthand look at what farmers do every day. The Field Moms will get to know the farmers and will have their questions answered as they visit beef, pork, canning vegetables, dairy and grain farms. The first tour will be of a pig farm this Saturday, Feb. 23, in Sycamore.

The 2013 Field Moms are:

• Faten Abdallah, Rochelle
• Amy Bizzarri, Chicago
• Amy Buffardi, Darien
• Teresa Buse, Streamwood
• Kimberly Findlay, Chicago
• Janelle Floerke, Orland Park
• Susan Herold, Rolling Meadows
• Renee Keats, Highland Park
• Helen Kolodynski, Chicago
• Christina Lee, La Grange Park
• Diane Letson, Chicago
• Becky Martinez, Glen Ellyn
• Amina Nevels, Chicago
• Natasha Nicholes, Chicago
• Davita Nobles, Tinley Park
• Elizabeth Rago, North Aurora
• Tanja Saarinen, Oak Park
• Jammie Esker Schaer, Elmhurst
• Samantha Schultz, Indian Head Park
• Alissa Spera, Chicago

“I want to see where my food comes from and share what I learn with others,” said Field Mom Becky Martinez. “With all the conflicting information about what foods to feed your family, I am looking forward to learning firsthand from the people who grow it.”   The Field Moms will each record their days on the farms by taking photos, videos and journaling their observations. After each farm tour, the Field Moms will share what they learned with other moms and consumers on www.WatchUsGrow.org, www.facebook.com/IllinoisFarmFamilies and http://twitter.com/ILFarmFamilies.    

“These days, folks just don’t have the same connection to the farm that they did in years past which means that there are more questions about what farmers do and how they do it,” said farm mom Donna Jeschke of Mazon, Ill. “That’s why we’re so excited to welcome these moms onto our farms to show them what we do while answering their questions about how food gets from the farm to their tables.” Jeschke is one of several farm moms who will accompany the Field Moms on tours this year.  

This is the second year for the Field Mom program which has been so successful, it has doubled in size. The Field Moms volunteer their time and were selected this month.   

A New Orleans newspaper reported an average of 108.4 million viewers watched this year’s Super Bowl. At one time, 164.1 million viewers were watching the broadcast. You can bet most of those viewers were also watching the commercials and not skipping over them with their DVR systems. During the fourth quarter, Dodge ran a two minute commercial for their Ram line of trucks. This ad, during the largest televised event of the year, gave America’s farmers a shout out and a very impressionable one at that evidenced by ranking the most popular commercial in the polls.

The Dodge Ram commercial began with one of many shots of America’s farmland: a cow standing in a snowy pasture and Paul Harvey’s name in blank type across the screen. Then, the voice of Harvey, the late radio broadcaster, began. What continued was his “God Made a Farmer” speech from the 1978 Future Farmers of America convention.  During the two minute spot, Harvey’s speech was set to brilliant photos of America’s hardworking farmers (men, women, and children), their land, livestock, equipment, and aspects of their lives.

His speech began with an allusion to the story of Genesis: “And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God made a farmer.”  

Harvey continued to describe God’s desires for the type of person he needed to take care of the land, crops, animals, and communities. Harvey followed with “So God made a farmer,” as an answer.

Even though the speech was from 1978, I truly believe that the “farmer” Harvey describes can be found on today’s farms and in rural communities. Both sides of my husband’s family are a testament to Harvey’s speech, as well as the many Illinois farm families I have come to know over the years.

I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing the commercial air live since I was busying putting my little ones to bed, and I really wish I would have. My husband, who is a full-time farmer, caught the commercial and watched it a few times until I returned downstairs to watch it with him.

From the start, I was captivated by Harvey’s smooth tone set against the backdrop of a slideshow of awesome photographs of God’s country.  I listened to the “God Made a Farmer” recording and thought to myself, ‘Yes, he’s got it right, that’s America’s farmers, and that’s my husband and his family!’ I could clearly put family members’ faces to Harvey’s descriptions of farmers. And I wanted to call my family members, who are not farmers, and proudly shout, ‘Did you see that farmer commercial? That’s my husband!’

I’ve viewed the commercial multiple times, and every time I tear up at the end of the speech when Harvey talks about a son wanting to farm just like his father. Those are the men in my husband’s family who, generation after generation, have chosen to farm.  And one day, that son will hopefully be our son, if he chooses to farm alongside his own father and grandfather.  

The commercial ended with silence as the last pictures came on screen. Ram dedicate the aid “To the farmer in all of us” which was printed on the last photo of a Ram truck.

Thank you, Dodge, for highlighting the time, dedication, patience, strength, “guts,” and “glory” it takes to be a farmer and feed America.

And, thank you, God, for making farmers.

Kristen Strom

Brimfield, IL

Kristen is a city-gone-country girl after her marriage to her husband, Grant, who is a full-time farmer.  You can follow her stories and adventures on her blog at http://farmnoteslittledahinda.blogspot.com.

I was debating what blog topic to write for the Illinois Farm Families website this week.  While I was out helping Chad feed the cattle on one of the unusually warm days we’ve had, I thought about how much easier it is to care for all the critters when the weather is warm.  But, then I got to thinking about the terrible heat of the past summer and decided that each season has it pros and cons.  My preferences are spring and fall!  For winter things would go a little smoother when if we didn’t have to worry about frozen waters, cold calves, heaters not working, etc.  In the summer things would go smoother if we didn’t have to haul water, worry about overheated animals, or storms that cause power outages.

Our hogs are raised in climate controlled buildings.  There are sensors that we set to control the temperature, air flow, fans, and ventilation.  We make adjustments as the hogs grow. We are raising a group of wean to finish pigs right now.  They require a little bit more TLC at the beginning.  They were started with special feed mats and heat lamps to get them growing well.  As they have matured, the mats and lamps have been removed and they are eating out of the regular feeder in each pen.  This winter we have not had to worry about frozen pigs, bedding them down, slopping through the mud to feed them or trying to keep them cool in the summer.  Hogs can’t sweat and can get overheated easily. It has been 15 years since we switched to feeding out all our hogs inside.  It was an excellent choice for us and the hogs are all the more comfortable for it.

Our cattle are pretty easy to care for, but there are challenges in the winter and the summer.  In the winter we deal with frozen automatic waters and hydrants, the cattle require extra bedding in their shelters and extra feed to keep them warm and full.  Newborn calves can have a harder time keeping warm and when the weather yo-yo’s it is harder to keep everyone healthy – cattle and people included.  We are still hauling water to the wells in the winter and we have to keep our water trucks unfrozen to do that.  The summer months we need to keep the cattle cool.  The bulls don’t always breed as well when it is hot – just too hot to do their business.  The summer drought kept the grass from growing much.  We started feeding hay a lot earlier, feed prices went up, and we hauled water to the wells.

We love what we do, even with all the challenges that are faced.  Raising livestock is rewarding.  There is nothing like seeing a newborn spring calf running and bucking through the pasture, or sitting in pen with little piglets chewing on your boots.  The pros definitely outweigh the cons in raising livestock.

Stacy Schutz is a farmer, wife, and mother of two daughters located in central Illinois. She farms with her family; raising corn, cattle and hogs. She loves her animals, food and is happy that they go hand in hand!  You can find out more about her at her blog, From Our Farm to You.

Reposted from Super Suburbs with permission from the author.
Originally posted January 4, 2013

If you’ve been reading this blog for any time, you know that this past year I had the amazing opportunity to be a part of the Field Mom program, with Illinois Farm Families. I got to visit a number of farms and agriculture-related businesses, ask questions, and get to know a bunch of amazing women and men who grow our food.

The experience is also what ultimately led me to Nebraska to work on my video with The Center for Food Integrity (the only thing I’ve ever written about on this blog that’s garnered me hate mail, which I of course take with a jar grain of salt).  :o)

For more information about why I wanted to be part of the program and my experience along the way, you can take a look at my page over on the Watch Us Grow site. Here’s a quick excerpt:

If there’s anything I’m going to take away from this experience it’s in the lessons I want to pass on to my Texas-born daughter: To work hard. To have respect for the world around her. To dream big. To marvel in what has been placed upon this land. And most of all, to approach every day as a blessing, an adventure, and to never take anything for granted.  I’m so thankful that the Illinois Farm Families gave me the opportunity to relearn those lessons for myself!

So sadly now my year is up, but that means it’s your turn! Applications are being accepted through January 30^th for the next round of Field Moms. The application can be found online here, and if you’re curious about the program or just want to meet everyone we’ll be having a meet-up soon to answer any questions you might have – if you want to attend that let me know and I can shoot you details.

If you have any questions about the process, what you might expect if you get picked, or just want to chat about what I learned during my year in the program, feel free to shoot me an email! And be sure to let me know if you apply, it would be awesome to know one of you got picked!  :o)

 Betsie Estes was a 2012 Illinois Farm Families Field Mom from Northwest Chicago. In addition to her full-time job, she cares for two children and writes the blog, Super Suburbs.

Did you have the day off of work Monday?

Since my "boss" lives in one of our upstairs bedrooms, there was no day off here in our little white house on the prairie.

But at least I don't have a morning commute...and I get to wear my sweatpants to work...and the boss takes a two-hour nap every day which allows for a little down time. (Just between you and me, when she's not around I drink iced coffee and plan my spring time assault on our garden and landscaping. When I'm feeling really crazy, I also watch Friends re-runs...Shhh.)

This spring-y-ish weather has really given me the gardening itch. My garden catalogs have started rolling in by the mailbox-fulls and they are starting to resemble my daughter's Toys R Us catalogs around Christmas time, dog-eared pages that are full of thick red magic marker circles. Truth be told, I already have an order prepared for everything from sunflowers to cilantro.

Matt and his cousins, Jack and Christopher, have been spending their winter "down time" helping local farmers do exactly the same thing. Only instead of sunflowers and cilantro, they are placing orders for corn and soybeans.

In modern agriculture, filling out your spring seed order isn't as easy as choosing between corn or soybeans. Genetically modified or non-gmo? Drought resistance? Food grade? Disease tolerance? How many acres of corn are you planning to plant? What about soybeans?

When farmers are paying an average of $260 PER BAG of corn and $50 PER BAG of soybeans, it's not a decision that one should take lightly.

Just as a point of reference, one bag of soybeans will plant just over one acre (1.1 to be exact) and one bag of corn will plant 2.3 acres. If a farmer plants just one 80-acre field of corn, his seed bill will be just a shade over $9,000.

Eeesh. That's like 45+ grocery trips.

I'm no math whiz, but I'm not sure that my $100 off any order of $200 or more coupon from Gurney's seed and nursery would get anyone very far. But for those farmers who really have their ducks in a row this winter, the earlier the seed order is submitted the larger the discount.

While my "boss" gives me my own daily dose of education on every subject from what's in Dora the Explorer's backpack to the finer points of proper princess tea party etiquette, Matt, Jack, and Christopher are spending their winter "down time" attending Pioneer seed meetings to learn about different varieties of seed corn and beans so they can better help farmers prepare for the fast-approaching spring planting season.

When the boys aren't attending meetings, they are visiting with local farmers, preparing seed information, organizing the seed shed, and training our seed shed watch cats to be fierce guardians.

I think they aren't spending as much time as they should on that last part.

Roganne Murray

Roganne is a farm wife, mother to a spunky two year-old and all-around farm girl. She and her husband Matt live in a white house on the Illinois prairie, and you can follow their adventures raising what they hope will be the sixth generation of Murrays to farm in Champaign county at White House on the Prairie.

Katie says, “Here, we’re given an opportunity to be in front of people that otherwise we would not be able to. We can answer questions and listen to concerns and tell our stories about how we farm and why we make the decisions we make.”

Katie and her husband, Andy, are seventh-generation farmers who raise corn, soybeans and seed corn on Grand Prairie Farms in Dixon, Ill. They currently farm in a partnership with Andy’s family and have two children, Ethan and Natalie.

Katie is looking forward to having conversations with consumers and learning more about other facets of agriculture.

“I’m very interested to explore other types of agriculture,” Katie said. “There’s so much out there and to serve as a spokesman for agriculture you need to know those types of things. I hope that, as a group, we’re able to have respectful conversations and really learn a lot for each other.”
You can get your questions answered from farm moms like Katie. Become a Field Mom and tour Illinois farms throughout the next year. We’re accepting applications now.