Illinois Farm Families Blog

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.

Well, our last tour is done and my head is still swimming!  We saw SO much on this trip, and I’m definitely still processing a lot of it.  The highlight for me was our visit to a Monsanto research facility – I could have stayed there for days!  It was fascinating, and I’m so very grateful I got the chance to go.

One of the really cool things about this tour was that it was an overnight, which gave us a unique opportunity to talk more in-depth with our fellow Field Moms.  In our conversations, I was surprised to learn that another Field Mom did have issues with pork production after seeing the Gould’s farm.  To me it was just like any other production facility; to her it raised some serious questions about how she wanted to feed her family.  So I’ll buy commercially raised pork with no qualms and she’ll make another decision.  Neither of us is making a better decision than the other – but we’re making the right choice for our families.  That’s the wonderful thing about this program; it’s given us insight, allowed us to form our own opinions, and empowered us at the supermarket.  Just like any of the other hot button issues moms face (breastfeeding, going back to work, etc) there isn’t one RIGHT answer about how to feed our families – you just have to do the best you can with the knowledge you have and make the right decision for you.

Our weekend tour started on a Friday night – we had dinner with a bunch of local farmers and just got to have some nice conversations about what was going on in all of our lives – it’s stuff like that that makes me see that there’s really no difference between the farmers and the city moms!  The next morning we were on the road early – we got to see how crops are loaded onto barges on the Mississippi River, and from there travel to St. Louis, New Orleans, and sometimes all the way to China!

We had a lovely lunch and got to tour the Moore’s farm before heading off to Monsanto.  I honestly think I could write a book on everything we learned there! What surprised me the most at Monsanto was that it was built just like a normal farm – crops in the fields, exposed to the elements – no barbed wire, no attack dogs, no privacy fence. For a company that so many people claim is doing evil and  secretive things, they seemed very open, honest, and eager to tell us all about their work.

We had a long drive home this time, and there were a lot of good conversations going on and a lot to reflect on during the ride. Honestly though, I didn’t really have a TON of questions about my food before becoming a Field Mom.  I’m the kind of person who generally does a lot of research, makes a decision, and feels confident in it.  A lot of people asked me on this trip why I wanted to be involved with the program, and I felt bad, because I didn’t have a rehearsed answer for them – I really couldn’t come up with an answer at all.  But here’s why – it’s because of THEM.  The people were the reason I wanted to connect with the Farm Families.  Having spent over 8 years in Texas, I got pretty used to a different way of life than we have here in Chicago.  Most importantly, I got used to the people – hardworking, independent, tough-as-nails women who are equally gorgeous in a pair of work boots or in rhinestone-encrusted flip flops.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my Chicago, and I love the women here – but this city is where I was raised; Texas is where I grew up, and the female role models I had there are a big part of that. 

I’m so glad I was able to meet women like Deb Moore, Carla Mudd, Amy Roady, and so many more awesome ladies who helped us out, answered our questions, and made us feel at home in a totally foreign environment. And so with that in mind, 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!

Betsie Estes

Last weekend I ventured out with my fellow Field Moms to Chris Gould’s farm, not far from the big city.  We learned about his family’s history with farming, toured the facilities, had lunch, and heard from an expert about some current issues in pork production that are having an impact on a global level.

Having recently read responses on the Watch Us Grow blog to McDonald’s decision to require its pork suppliers to stop using gestation stalls, I was particularly interested in seeing the living conditions of the pigs on the farm.  While it was a little shocking to see all the pigs lined up in stalls, it was actually a much calmer, cleaner, humane environment than the media had led me to believe.

What’s important to remember is that it really is in the farmer’s best interests to take good care of their animals.  Even if all they cared about was making money, they would still treat their animals as well as possible, because more animals thriving equals a larger profit for the farmer.  That’s not to say that farmers have an emotional attachment to each animal they raise, because they don’t – and I think that’s hard for a lot of us non-farmers to understand.  People like Chris Gould and Pam Janssen aren’t raising pigs to be family pets – they’re raising them to meet the nutritional needs of our ever-growing global population.  There is a huge, important difference there.  These pigs are food – not pets. 

Even so, clearly the farmers care about the animals’ well-being, and are always looking for ways to improve upon current systems of production.  I really loved hearing Dr. Janeen Salak-Johnson, a researcher from the University of Illinois, speak to us about gestation stalls – why they’re used, and the pros and cons of some alternative methods.  It’s easy to see a picture of a pig in a stall and jump to conclusions about that pig’s quality of life, but that’s why I’m so happy to be a Field Mom – I actually got to see how the pigs were treated firsthand.  I didn’t see a single pig that I thought was being abused, neglected, or otherwise mistreated.  On the contrary, I could see how the crates actually keep the pigs healthy by allowing the farmers to efficiently and safely provide them with quality care.

I wrote a blog post a few months ago about how being a Field Mom was enabling me to find my own truth – without any spin from the media, activitists, or corporations.  I wish every consumer could have these experiences, because they truly are eye-opening, and I believe seeing these things firsthand is the only way to really make educated, fact-based decisions about where your food is coming from.

Betsie Estes

Field Mom

Elk Grove Village

My ears definitely perked up when he mentioned that, because just earlier in the week I had read this article, about a high incidence of an autoimmune disorder among certain workers at the plant, and how Hormel has reacted.  Now obviously that article focuses a lot on labor and immigration issues, but things like: “…And then there was the sound of sizzling electric prods, the clatter of cloven hooves on metal grating, and the guttural, almost human, screeching of hogs” were what stood out to me.  I’m an animal lover, so stuff like that gets under my skin, and makes me question my decision to fry up a pound of bacon and serve BLTs for dinner.

So Chris mentioned going to Austin, I embarrassed myself and yelled out “the Spam plant!” (as if everyone else at the table had read the article too), and he continued to tell us about his experience.  Unlike Ted Genoways, the author of the article, Chris did get to venture inside the plant.

He told us the butchering process was calm.  Quiet.  That the pigs are loaded off of the trucks and put in a pen to relax before they’re slaughtered (I’m sorry, but I can’t think of a more PC word for that…).

Hmm.  So here’s the thing – while “calm” and “quiet” are totally relative terms, and probably mean something a little different to a pig farmer than they do to someone like me who works in an office all day, the contrast between what Chris described and what Genoways described is huge.

And THIS is why I applied to be a field mom.  Because I want to get closer to the truth.  Not the media version, not the PETA version, not even the Hormel-spun version – I want to sit down with the farmers themselves and hear what they have to say.  Chris didn’t know what I’d read earlier in the week.  He didn’t know that the vision of ”…the guttural, almost human, screeching of hogs…” was still lingering in my mind.  He was just a guy, telling a table of ladies about a trip he took.  I think that’s about as close to the unspun truth as this suburban mom is going to get, and I’m so thankful to have the opportunity to hear it firsthand.

Betsie Estes
Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Originally posted by Betsie on her personal blog at Super Suburbs.

After lunch (at a century old, haunted restaurant, no less!) we headed on to Dale and Linda Drendel’s dairy farm.  They had the red buildings I had expected to see at the Martz farm, but that didn’t mean they were running a small operation.  Again I was greeted with more technology and high-tech gadgets than I ever expected to see on a farm.  We first toured the barn that housed all the young calves – these were absolutely adorable!  As an animal lover it was a little hard for me to stomach the fate of the animals we saw with Lynn and Mike, so it was nice to know these little ones had a longer lifespan ahead of them.

We then headed on to watch actual cows being milked.  No milkmaids on stools here – the cows are milked in a herringbone parlor by machine.  I got to put my thumb in the device used to milk them and feel the amount of pressure that’s used – it was actually pretty comfortable for me, so it was good to know the cows aren’t being hurt while they’re milked.  After this we headed off to the show barn, where we got to see the prize-winning Lindale cows.  These girls are the best of the best (and have the longest lifespan of any of the animals we saw on the farms during these tours) – and according to the Drendels’ daughter, Julie, they know it!

While in the show barn we heard from the Drendels’ veterinarian.  He was asked about the hormones and antibiotics in milk, and I found his response quite comforting.  Basically, just like beef from the farm, there’s a withdrawal period once cows are given antibiotics – so those never enter into the milk in stores.  As far as the hormones, we learned that the hormones given are naturally-occurring in the cows, and the amount is not nearly as much as I’d imagined.  My kids were raised from infancy in west Texas, and we didn’t have a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or anything of the sort nearby, so they were brought up on regular old milk – hormones and all.  Since it wasn’t an option for us I never gave it a second thought – until we moved to Chicago, and I was surrounded by people who buy fancy things like almond milk and organic, hormone-free milk (which, at $6 a gallon, is out of reach for us anyway).  I’ll be honest, that’s something I’ve had a lot of guilt over since we moved, so I was glad to release some of that after hearing an expert opinion for myself.

All in all, the day was incredibly eye-opening.  I saw things I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to see, and talked to people I never in a million years thought I’d be talking to.  I feel so lucky to have been chosen as a Field Mom, and I can’t wait to continue this journey and learn even more over the next year.

Betsie Estes

Elk Grove Village, IL