Illinois Farm Families Blog

Last night, my husband left on a “business trip”. Not the get-in-a-limo-wearing-a-suit type of trip, but a jump-in-his-pickup-truck-with-a-hog-trailer type of trip. My husband is a farmer and also raises and sells show pigs as a hobby. His “business trips” entail packing over night bags full of jeans and collared shirts, not suits and ties, and driving a trailer of pigs to a neighboring or far-off state for a hog show.  

Growing up, my dad and step-dad both left on business trips frequently throughout the year. They would wake up, dress in their suit and tie, and wait for their taxi or limousine to pick them up and take them to the airport before sun-rise. They’d be gone anywhere from just a full day (flying out early in the morning and back late at night), a few days, or even a week. They’d return exhausted carrying their briefcase and suitcase through the door wearing what seemed to be the same suit they left in. We’d greet them at the door with hugs and kisses to welcome them home. No sooner, they’d loosen their tie and get out of their suit and put on something more comfortable.  

Sometimes, I was lucky enough to accompany my dad on his business trips: Florida, San Diego, Hawaii, and Las Vegas were my favorites.  My first father-daughter trip was to Atlantic City when I was 7 years old. I have such special memories of being alone with my dad on that trip. Many years later, imagine my excitement when I was in college and my dad called to ask me if I wanted to join him in Las Vegas and we’d spend a few days hiking in Utah before his conference began.  I was beyond thrilled! Hawaii was pretty awesome too! 

My husband has recently offered to take me to far-off lands of Oklahoma and Texas where I’d accompany him at pig shows, but I’ve respectfully declined. However, when we were dating (and I was eager to impress him), I did join him at the Illinois State Fair for two days where I hung out in a very hot hog barn in the middle of summer. I remember wearing cute jeans, a black tank top, and adorable sandals. I learned my lesson quickly as my blank top turned the color of saw dust, my jeans got all dirty from being sideswiped by pigs multiple times on their way to the ring, and my toes need protection from who-knows what on the concrete floor. When my kids are a bit older, we will go along with my husband to pig shows to experience the excitement of raising livestock. Although we won’t be going to Hawaii or Las Vegas anytime soon, the pride that comes from raising pigs from birth can be pretty awesome, and I want my children to experience that too. 

These days, I don’t welcome home a man in a suit and tie, but a husband who is still in his dirty show clothes from the early morning of selling and loading pigs. He too is exhausted from a long day and night of driving and many days away from home. And although he is eager to get out of his “business attire,” I always steal a kiss to welcome him home…even if he smells faintly of pigs. 

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 Little Dahinda.

Chicago blogger Emily Paster writes about food almost every day. She's also been interested in learning more about where her food comes from. In the fall of 2011, she accompanied the Field Moms on their tours of Illinois dairy and crop and livestock farms. Last week she was in New York to continue the conversation about food and farming. Here's her latest blog post on a topic many consumers want to know more about: 

My Thoughts on Antibiotics and Food
Let me begin this post by saying that I am serious when I say that these are my thoughts on the issue of antibiotics in farming. I speak for no one but myself. And I am by no means an expert on this topic. I am not a scientist, a veterinarian nor a farmer. I am a simply a concerned consumer.

I am fortunate in that, through this blog, I have had unique opportunities to ask my questions about antibiotic use in animal agriculture directly to scientists, veterinarians and farmers. Most recently, I attended the latest in the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) series of Food Dialogues, which took place in New York City on November 15. One of the three panels that USFRA presented that day was entitled “Antibiotics and Your Food” and featured a diverse group of panelists, including two large animal vets one who is also a dairy farmer and one who works for the American Veterinary Medical Association; an Iowa pork producer; a pediatric nutritionist; and Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union. The panel was very informative and I encourage you to watch it for yourself here. I will also share with you my impressions.

Before I get into my thoughts on antibiotics and food, I want to disclose that I was at Food Dialogues in New York as a guest of the USFRA.  I was actually there to help judge the Faces of Farming and Ranching contest, a nationwide search for five farmers or ranchers who will have a unique opportunity to share their stories with audiences throughout the country. These farmers and ranchers were a passionate, inspiring group of men and women, old and young, from South Carolina to Oregon and everywhere in between and I loved hearing their stories. I encourage everyone to check out the finalists and vote for your favorites between now and December 15. I promise that you will enjoy hearing from this interesting and knowledgeable group and they may even change your image of what a farmer is. Because I was in New York to judge the contest, my travel was paid for by USFRA and I was compensated for my time.

However, even though I was at Food Dialogues under the auspices of the USFRA, I am not on any particular side in this debate. I do not have an ax to grind. I am neither pro conventional agriculture and anti-organic or the reverse. I am simply a consumer who cares deeply about the quality of my food, food safety, nutrition, equal access to healthy food for all, sustainability, and animal welfare. USFRA did not ask me to write about my experience at Food Dialogues, nor is the organization paying me for anything other than my work as a guest judge.  These thoughts are truly my honest impressions. And I may get some things wrong. If I do, I hope someone will tell me — in a civil manner of course.

We are all familiar with antibiotics. We take them ourselves; we give them to our children and our pets for infections such as strep throat or sinusitis. Maybe you or someone you love has battled a more serious infection and has need antibiotics to survive. My daughter Zuzu had a rare infection as a newborn and was hospitalized for six days. The antibiotics that she received likely prevented her from being permanently disfigured. So, we all know that antibiotics can do tremendous good.

Many of us also know that scientists and doctors are concerned about antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, which seem to be increasing. The concern is that we will not have effective treatments for these bacteria going forward. There are many theories about why these resistant strains of bacteria are on the increase, such as doctors overprescribing antibiotics or patients not finishing courses of antibiotics.

There are also some scientists who believe that the use of antibiotics in agriculture has contributed to these resistant strains of bacteria. Let me stop right there to emphasize this point. It’s really important that we understand what the concern is when we talk about antibiotics and food. The concern is NOT that there are antibiotics in the meat we eat or the milk we drink. Animals that are being killed for food or cows that are milked cannot have antibiotics in their systems. The FDA tests for that. (The FDA only tests for a limited number of drugs, of course, which may raise concerns for some people.) The law requires that an animal that receives antibiotics for any reason cannot be used for meat or milked for a mandated period of time to allow the antibiotics to work through their systems. In short, we are not ingesting antibiotics in meat or milk.

The concern of consumer advocacy groups like the Consumers Union is that the use of antibiotics in agriculture is contributing to the increase of resistant strains of bacteria. Now, to understand this concern, it is important to understand how antibiotics are used in agriculture. In conventional agriculture, antibiotics are used both to treat sick animals and also prophylactically to prevent disease and to promote growth.

I’m going to pause here for a minute to discuss the difference between conventional and organic meat and milk. Organic milk and meat comes from animals that are never treated with antibiotics. That means that if a cow on an organic dairy farm develops mastitis — a common infection in animals that are nursing, including humans — the farmer cannot treat that cow with antibiotics if he or she wants to continue to milk that cow once the cow recovers from the infection. (No responsible dairies, conventional or organic, would continue to milk a sick cow.) I have asked numerous sources what happens to the cow in that instance and I haven’t gotten one clear answer. Some people say that the farmer can hope the infection clears up on its own; or the farmer can treat the cow with antibiotics but then has to sell her. I still am not sure what happens. I wrote a lot more on the difference between conventional and organic milk here if you are curious.

Even those scientists and activists who want conventional agriculture to reduce its antibiotic use acknowledge that it makes sense for farmers who want to do so to use antibiotics to treat sick animals, just as it makes sense to use antibiotics to treat sick people. (Of course, it is important to understand and factor in the wide-ranging effects that antibiotics can have on the so-called good bacteria that is part of everyone’s biome. The October 22 issue of The New Yorker contained a fascinating article on how little we understand about the role bacteria plays in our health.) Their concern is about the antibiotics given to animals to prevent disease and promote growth. As panelist Jean Halloran asserted, the concern is that this use of antibiotics is contributing to resistant strains of bacteria.

The farmers and vets on the panel dispute this assertion and claim that there is no proven link between this prophylactic use of antibiotics in animals and the rise of so-called resistant super-bugs. They argue that the use of antibiotics to prevent disease and to promote growth enables them to raise animals in a more efficient manner, which is both more sustainable and leads to reduced costs for the  consumer. They also dispute the notion that farmers are giving drugs willy-nilly to their animals and point out that antibiotics are expensive. Farmers have every incentive to use them wisely and indeed can only give antibiotics to their animals under the supervision of a veterinarian.

Where does that leave the consumer? Probably confused. I still am. But here’s my take-away. Resistant strains of bacteria are a real concern for us all. We all need to do our part to ensure that antibiotics are used responsibly. We shouldn’t demand antibiotics for every sniffle and when we do genuinely need a prescription for antibiotics, we should follow the instructions on that prescription.

As for food, if you want to buy organic milk or meat for whatever reason, please do so. But let’s all understand that there are no antibiotics in conventional milk or meat. Conventional meat and milk are safe products and no one should feel bad for buying them. I personally think that it is an acceptable and even commendable practice to treat animals with antibiotics when sick, as conventional farmers do. I don’t know much about animal welfare, but it seems potentially cruel not to treat a sick animal.

Do I continue to have concerns about the use of antibiotics as disease prevention or growth promotion? I do. While I am not convinced that there is hard proof that this use of antibiotics has contributed to the rise of resistant strains of bacteria, I find it plausible that it has done so. And I found many of panelist Jean Halloran’s arguments that we can produce safe meat and milk without a significant increased cost while reducing our use of antibiotics to be convincing. In short, it seems to me that benefits of reducing our use of preventative antibiotics in animals outweigh the costs. But I continue to have many questions and I will continue to explore this controversial topic.

Do you have concerns about how antibiotics are used in agriculture? Do you worry about resistant super-bugs? If so, have you changed your behavior as a result?

Emily Paster Chicago area
Emily Paster is a Chicago mom and food blogger. She shares her passion for all things food at www.westoftheloop.com. This blog was shared with permission from the author.

Illinois farm mom Katie Pratt is in New York City today. She’s one of only nine finalists in a national search for farmers who will put a face to farming and share their stories. In her own words, she’s “shocked, surprised and excited about the journey that lies ahead.” Katie’s a great candidate for the job; in fact, sharing farm stories has been a family tradition for years.

 Katie now needs your vote. Through December 15, you can vote for Katie at the USFRA Food Dialogues website.

Katie is a full-time farm mom from Dixon, Illinois (about 100 miles west of downtown Chicago). You’ve seen her as enthusiastic Illinois Farm Families volunteer – blogging here, hosting sit-down conversations with Chicago moms and sharing her passion for farming with those in her own community.

 Katie and her husband, Andy, are seventh generation farmers. Together they raise two adorable farm kids and grow corn, soybeans and seed corn. Katie’s family still raises pigs, cattle, goats and horses only a few minutes away. The family farm has been open to visitors, including non-farm neighbors, urban Chicago moms and teachers, and farmers from around the globe, for more than 40 years. Watch a video from Katie.

Now, one of your favorite farm moms has the opportunity to share her farm story and food conversation nationally with the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance – the group of farmers and ranchers answering Americans’ questions about how your food is grown.

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.

Too much about small towns and family farms falls victim to inaccurate stereotypes. Yet the image of good-hearted, hard-working people generally holds true. (Even if they don’t wear straw hats.)
Our small-town community annually pulls off an amazing and huge Thanksgiving-type feast at our church. We call it the annual Turkey Supper, held the last Saturday in October. We serve turkey and the homemade trimmings to nearly 500 people. The population of our town is 600.
The effort requires 21 turkeys, 81 loaves of bread for dressing, 65 pounds of coleslaw, six roasters brim-full of mashed potatoes, 15 gallons of gravy, 40 bags of cranberries and 23 big cans of green beans. For dessert: 80 pies and cakes! You drool at the thought and certainly salivate at my church’s front door. 
I watched volunteers walk in the church and become mesmerized by the aroma. They shake the urge to eat and take to their stations in the kitchen. The fellowship hall. The Sunday School room. And the choir practice area. 
The effort requires more than 60 volunteers. That includes people to waitress the family-style meal, slice turkey, bake dressing, cut pies and dish food. Meal-time requires a crew in the kitchen and a crew in second room, which serves carry-outs through a front window. Shifts arrive to wash dishes (including 20-plus roasters!). That number doesn’t even include the people who bake pies at home and donate ingredients. The list is lengthy and exhausting. 
As is the work. Hours ahead of the meal, you see people in food-speckled clothes who could benefit from a bath. Or at least a sweat band. We pray a week or two ahead of the event – asking the Lord for strength and guidance in anticipation of the day.
Three generations of my family work the Turkey Supper. My grandma, mom and I all worked in the kitchen this year. Four aunts worked an aspect, too. Several cousins served as waitresses in the past. Our daughter, the fourth generation, helped a little bit last year when we chunked about 80 loaves of Wonder bread for the dressing.
Grandma has been the gravy lady for years. She makes this flavorful topper the way it’s supposed to be: from the turkey broth. She stirs for hours with her arm perched above tall, commercial-type stockpots. 
This year, I inherited Mom’s green bean duties. She instead co-chaired the kitchen operations and washed dishes for NINE HOURS. And like many of us, she didn’t get a bite of it until forking into her carryout meal at home afterwards. 
What a delicious primer to Thanksgiving – which by comparison may be less work!
Joanie Stiers
Williamsfield, IL

I’ve missed 114 milkings….in a row.  We knew this was coming, but counting them up just now makes me feel incredibly inadequate, and sad.  You see, I miss the cows.  I miss the smells (good and bad).  I miss talking to the cows.  I miss their mannerisms.  I miss knowing who is milking well, who is sick, and who calved.  I miss the schedule of it all.  I miss working with Brent.
Having a baby changes life.  Many people have laughed & giggled at me, when I tried to say, oh, they’ll just come along – I can still work.  This was true all throughout pregnancy.  I milked cows the night we went to the hospital, but now – someone else sets the schedule.  
There are benefits.  The house is fairly clean, I’m caught up on laundry, the farm books are up to date, and I’m able to prepare a real supper nearly every night.  A real supper – a main dish, vegetable, even the occasional dessert.  We still eat in the living room, but this is a good 1st step.  And, yes, I get to spend nearly all my time with our daughter. 
It’s November – the time of being thankful.  So, I’m thankful: 
For Family – those that are spending more hours in a barn, so I can spend more time with the newest member of our family
For Friends – those that come and help with milkings, and those that watch the baby while I go for X-rays
For Weather – that is fairly cooperative so that the harvest can be completed, and all the chores can get done, and allows for some excursions out around the farm
For Inspiration – Join us for 30 days: mycowsandpigs.blogspot.com, My Generation
For the Future – a beautiful, healthy baby girl that we can teach about farming, and will be milking cows with us soon.
This is why we farm!
Carrie Pollard Po-Cop Dairy Rockford, Ill.

Day 2: Why we plant genetically modified seeds on our farm. Part 1.

Fear. Misinformation. Marketing. Fear. Health. Children. Fear. Fear.

All this and more is playing into the discussion involving GMOs these days. And here on the farm, it feels like old news. Fifteen-plus years ago, we evaluated the technology, learned we could plant it and use fewer and less-potent pesticides, have fewer weeds and less required labor. It was a business decision. We got on board. We've gone on to plant Bt corn (using products from DuPont, Syngenta and Monsanto), LibertyLink corn (a Bayer product), RoundupReady corn and beans (using Monsanto and Syngenta products), rootworm-resistant corn (both Monsanto and DuPont products).

But off the farm, in parts further west, let's say, people are downright angry. California's Proposition 37 is being sold as people's "right to know" what's in their food. And if you'd like a logical look at both sides of the argument, check out this point-counterpoint blog.

On its face, I would agree with the right to know. Yet common sense might suggest that given 95% of the U.S. corn crop is planted to biotech seed, you can safely assume any food not labeled organic or GM-free has a product in it that's derived from biotech seed. And further, consider the extensive exemptions being offered even under the "Right to Know" Proposition 37. Even with Prop 37, I'm not sure California consumers will know as much as they want to.

But I digress.

I think much of the problem here is that people just don't understand each other. We sit here in the Midwest and think how those poor consumers just don't know what we do and if they only understood how nice we all are and how much we love our farms and our families, they'd leave us alone and let us carry on with our business. And from what I hear, they sit in their cities and on their coasts and think we farmers are a bunch of poor, overall-wearing saps who are beholden to Monsanto and the rest of Big Agribusiness.

So, here's what I think we need to understand in farm country:

*  Consumers are concerned about the long-term health effects of biotechnology. They're looking at down-the-road diseases like cancer, heart disease, obesity, the "unknown."

*  Saying we produce the safest, most abundant food supply in the world doesn't resonate with consumers. When you say safe, they hear short-term safety (which they expect anyway) and when you say abundant, they hear too much food (which is making us obese).

*  They want transparency. This is one of many reasons why I love this blog. He offers up all the details. In PDF form, no less.

* We need to be less about "telling our story," and more about answering their questions.

What would I like them to know? In the interest of the final point above, I would respond to their questions. And I think immediately of an ongoing conversation I've been having with a California friend-of-a-friend. She could not be nicer and more convinced of her opinions, and I respect that. I really do. But in talking with her, I can see some of her underlying information about how corn is grown is just, well, incorrect.

I don't want to quote her directly here without her permission, but to paraphrase, she believes Monsanto has a monopoly on the seed market, that it sends investigators to farms to see if seeds have blown over into another farmer's field, and then they sue those farmers. She also thinks farmers can't afford non-GMO or non-Monsanto seed, or even alfalfa because Monsanto has a monopoly.

I have to reiterate, she is not alone in thinking this, which is why I'm sharing it. From what I have seen, these are commonly held assumptions. Perhaps that means there's an organization sharing this kind of misinformation among California consumers. I don't know.

But here's what I do know:

*  Monsanto does not have a monopoly on the seed market. Among the many companies we buy seed from is Golden Harvest, which is owned by Syngenta. Syngenta is one of five companies who have patented genetically modified seed traits. Monsanto is not the only one. They do have a lot of market share, but there are still other options. We plant a wide variety of seed on our farm, including from small, family-owned seed companies.

*  Seeds don't blow from one farm to another. Seeds are planted in the ground, where they sprout and grow into plants. Corn plants produce a tassel that's laden with pollen. The pollen falls from the tassel and lands on the silks that sprout from the top of each ear of corn. Each silk goes to a single kernel on the ear. Now pollen? Pollen can blow from one field to another. Generally, farmers try to work together and if their neighbor is planting non-GM, they try to plant in a way that reduces pollen drift.

*  About 15 cases have worked their way through the court system, regarding Monsanto suing farmers. Really, I've never heard of a farmer being sued because pollen drifted into their field and Monsanto wants them to pay for it. It's actually more the other way around. You can read here or here about a Canadian farmer and his odyssey through the Canadian court system with Monsanto. In short, he knew (or ought to have known) he had saved and planted Roundup Ready seed back in 2001, violating the agreement he had signed. He appealed in 2002 and all 17 grounds were dismissed by a three-member court. He appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court in 2004 and lost again.

*  Non-GM seed costs less than GM seed. In the farm world, we talk about traited and non-traited varieties, and when you're talking traits (like rootworm or roundup or corn borer resistence), you're talking more money. This makes sense. If there is extra technology in that seed which allows us to, say, use less weed control products, or helps the plant grow better in a drought, or lets us use less insect control products, we should pay for it. Again, it's good business sense. It's an added value, and that value adds to the cost.

*  Monsanto has a very small share of the alfalfa seed market. I don't know what else to say about that. It just does.

I don't know that this will sway someone who is a die-hard supporter of Prop 37, or who considers GM foods to be poisoned. Maybe they can make a more well-informed decision, even if they vote for Prop 37.

I don't know that this will make a difference. But I have to believe it helps, if only to make a better informed decision.

**A note: I had the crazy idea that I could cover biotechnology in one post. Silliness. Look for another post on biotechnology and the research surrounding it.
Holly Spangler
Marietta, Illinois

Holly Spangler is a farmwife to John, mother to three little farm kids and farm writer for Prairie Farmer, all from their farmstead in western Illinois. You can follow her blog, My Generation. 

This post, used with permission, was first published on November 2, 2012: http://farmprogress.com/prairie-farmer/blogs.aspx/30-days-prairie-farm-biotechnology-3779

And certainly, I haven't watched daytime TV since, well, I can't remember when. But I have read enough of Dr. Oz to know neither I, nor anyone else, can logically expect to get sound diet or medical advice from him. And as an aside, who wears scrubs all the time?   And then I came across this: a letter from Dr. Bruce Chassy to the producers of Dr. Oz's show, written in response to their efforts to have him appear on a Dr. Oz show about GMOs and food production. Chassy is a professor emeritus of food science at the University of Illinois. When I was on campus, he was head of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and later became Assistant Dean for Science Communications. This is all to say, he knows his stuff and he's been around the block a time or two. Reading the letter, it's clear he had grave misgivings about their ability to produce an unbiased show. As it turns out, the show is set to air just before the election, and (not coincidentally) just before California votes on Proposition 37, which would require labeling of any GM product. Give the letter a read. My favorite line from Dr. Chassy: "Your assurances and the tactics of the Dr. Oz show fall short of even the lowest standards of media and medical ethics." Zing. And a further aside: it all makes me wonder what sort of back room deals Wayne Pacelle struck with Oprah to keep real hog producers like Matt Kellogg from having an open mic during her animal welfare show. It's tough to think that even the scientists and the farmers can't get a fair shake on some of these shows. But that's another blog for another day.

We completed harvest for 2012, and have been in the farm office evaluating how the year went.  It sure was an emotional year with the summer drought – not knowing what we really had until we harvested each field. Our yields ended up better than we had expected, but at 25 percent below average.

 In October we hosted a mother of three from Long Island, N.Y., Christine, to talk about organic vs. non-organic farming methods and how biotechnology is used on our farm. We talked about why and how we grow and raise America’s food. A short portion of Christine’s farm visit was featured on the Anderson Live TV show. Both on- and off- camera, my husband Mike and I had the opportunity to talk face-to-face about questions and concerns moms have about food in general and the choices Christine and consumers get to make. Watch the video to see Christine’s tour and our discussion about organic food choices.  

Lynn and Mike Martz
Larson Farms
Maple Park, Illinois

Last Saturday, we hosted the winners of the Illinois Farm Families Farmtastic Food Trek on our farm. The Farmtastic Food Trek was a grocery store scavenger hunt. The clues came from Illinois Farm Families who described their farms, crops and livestock and asked questions about which food products were related to their farm. When scavenger hunt participants found the bacon, cheese or other items, they used Instagram™ to take a picture with that item and submit their entry.
  

The three winning families received a farm tour at our farm, a $500 grocery gift card and a gift bag of farm toys, games, books and activities. 

The winners include Kristen Baker, Elgin, Ill.; Marilyn Alam, Hyde Park, Ill.; and Amy Parille, Aurora, Ill.

We met on this crisp fall morning at my parents’ farm in Amboy, Ill. Here families met April, my mom’s paint horse, and helped feed and water her.

Then we headed to the hog house and talked about the improvements we have made in raising pigs to ensure their comfort and care. Finally, the group boarded the hayrack, bundled in blankets and headed down the road to the cattle pasture.  

We talked about our beef cattle herd and how we care for the cows and calves differently, and how we manage the pasture they graze. The families saw how our families still work together on the farm to raise animals and grow crops that feed our family and yours. 

It was our pleasure to share our home, our farm, good food and good conversation with these families.  

Have you been on a local farm tour? Illinois farmers have their doors open and welcome your questions about food and farming. Ask your questions and share your comments below.

Katie Pratt
Grand Prairie Farms