Illinois Farm Families Blog

Food defines the seasons on our farm.  By spring, we’ve exhausted our winter stores of garden vegetables and plant seeds with visions of fresh salads and side dishes in our heads. Throughout the summer and early fall we eat from the garden, literally.  One morning my kids and I took our spoons out to the melon patch, picked a sweet smelling cantaloupe, sat down and ate right there in the yard.  That was the best breakfast. 

Of course, food in the fall means meals in the field.  Growing up, we lunched in the field.  That was the time of day my dad agreed to stop the combine, tractors and trucks.  We’d toss a blanket on the field’s edge or in the back of the pick-up and lay out our fare.  Most often lunch was a hearty ham sandwich ladened with garden fresh lettuce and tomatoes, an apple plucked from the backyard tree and cut vegetables from the garden.  My mom always had a sweet treat – brownies, pumpkin squares, apple squares, sugar cookies . . . my mouth is watering. 

These days my husband, his dad and brother stop for supper.  My mother-in-law, sister-in-law and I divide the week, each taking two nights. (I am thankful that on this farm we take Sunday to heart and rest for the day.)

We’re not the only farm wives that trek to the fields at dinnertime.  Between 5 and 6 p.m. you might see several combines stopped and a small group huddled around a dropped tailgate or raised hatch of an SUV.  The group consists of the harvest crew, which can range from one person to several and any kids, the farm wife and sometimes passers-by who stopped to talk.  Let me just say, retired farmers and agri-businessmen are smart.  They know when meals are served and who cooks and bakes what.  I always make plenty for the “extra help”. 

I have my go-to recipes and laughed out loud the year my brother-in-law said of the first meal, “Let me guess.  Sausage and rice casserole.”  Guess I had served that several years in a row. 

The kids get to see their dad, because they often go for days at a time not seeing him.  He starts work at 5 a.m. and will go until 9 or 10 p.m.  Meals in the field give the men a break to stretch their legs, talk to each other face to face instead of through the radio and to stop and see what they’ve accomplished. 

Standing in a harvested field at dusk sharing a meal, one can see for miles to where the purple night sky meets the earth. The low voices and deep laughter of the harvest crew fades quickly into the dusty waning light.  I am reminded of how tiny we are in the grand scheme of nature’s life cycle and yet so very blessed to be sharing the thrill of harvest with good people. 

Katie Pratt
Grand Prairie Farms

It is a proposition being sold as a simple measure, when really it represents a flagrant attempt by trial lawyers to create a new source for shakedown lawsuits at the expense of farmers, food producers and, ultimately, all Californians.

All without any evidence of actual health benefits.

Proposition 37 amounts to a California-only ban of tens of thousands of perfectly safe, common grocery products containing genetically engineered (GE) ingredients, unless they are specially repackaged, relabeled or made with higher-cost ingredients.

It mandates new paperwork requirements for California agriculture, whether GE crops are involved or not. This measure exposes farmers and food producers to a bumper crop of shakedown lawsuits, because provisions buried in fine print allow trial lawyers to sue family farmers, grocers and small businesses even if they are following the law.

In fact, the proposition’s author, a well-known trial lawyer, and his contemporaries have made millions suing small businesses under rules he helped write into another California proposition more than 20 years ago.

All told, Proposition 37 could result in $1.2 billion in higher costs for food processors and farmers, according to a new study by University of California, Davis, agricultural economics professors.

A separate new economic impact study also determined that requiring food producers to relabel, repackage or remake thousands of common grocery products with higher-priced ingredients would increase the cost of food sold by as much as $5.2 billion per year. That translates to $350 to $400 dollars a year for each household.

That is not a small burden for Californians, especially in the midst of a prolonged recession.

On top of the added costs, Proposition 37 also would lead to needless confusion and even fear among food shoppers looking to make healthy choices. Those of us who oppose Proposition 37 support providing important, relevant, scientifically valid information to consumers.  But food labeling should be based on fact, not fear, and it most certainly should not be misleading or confusing.

This measure flies in the face of decades of scientific and medical research that has determined that GE ingredients pose no health risk. In fact, tens of thousands of common foods are made with ingredients from biotech or genetically engineered crops.

The National Academy of Sciences, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association and other respected scientific bodies have endorsed GE foods as safe. The FDA says labeling policies like Prop. 37 would “be inherently misleading.”

The American Medical Association voted in June to adopt this policy position: “There is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods.”

Meanwhile, Proposition 37 is full of politically motivated and nonsensical exemptions for foods than can contain GE ingredients. For instance, Prop. 37 requires special labels on soy milk, but exempts dairy products even though cows may be fed GE grains. Under Proposition 37, pet foods containing meat require labels, but meat for human consumption is exempt. Food imported from foreign countries is exempt if sellers merely include a statement that their products are “GE free.” Unscrupulous foreign companies would surely game the system.

What’s worse, the measure has a confusing provision that would prohibit any food that is pasteurized, heated, dried, juiced or otherwise processed from being labeled or advertised as “natural.” This provision applies even if the processed food has no GE ingredients whatsoever. For example, a bag of raw almonds would be considered “natural” and could be labeled as such. But if they are roasted and canned, a definition of processing in Prop. 37, they could no longer be called “natural.”

Two University of California, Davis, professors summed it up best in their final analysis of Proposition 37: “The proposed regulations have no basis in science and impose rules that would have significant costs for food producers, processors and marketers, and ultimately for consumers, while providing misinformation and no demonstrable benefits.”

Doctors, scientists and agriculture experts, along with business and taxpayers groups and Farm Bureaus representing regions across California, all agree: There is simply no justification for Proposition 37. Let’s not impose a cartload of new costs and red tape just to please a few trial lawyers.

Vote no on Proposition 37.

Written by: Jamie Johansson

Used with permission from Truth About Trade and Technology.
 

My 5-year-old daughter couldn’t wait to get off the bus recently and head to the corn field our family was harvesting. In fact, after a quick hug, she asked me to confirm our evening plans in the field and bounced with joy at the affirmative response.

Specifically, she loves to eat supper in the field. It’s her all-around favorite place to dine, trumping Grandma’s house and the nearby sandwich shop with arcade games. In fact, she will have her sixth birthday party in a corn or soybean field this week.

Greetings from west-central Illinois, where we grow corn and soybeans about a three-hour drive from Chicago. Also on some of my family’s farms you’ll find wheat, hay, cattle, pigs, a few barn cats and farm dogs. Corn and soybeans generate our household farm income and makes a living for my parents and brother.

Right now we’re harvesting the crops and have more than a month to go. Unless it rains, we work daily until bedtime or later. Harvest keeps my husband away from home most waking hours for our kids, ages 5 and 3. After his 7-to-5 farm equipment job, he heads to the field to relieve a member of the daytime harvest crew. The kids and I join him in the field to share some experience-based family time. The kids ride in the tractor, visit with their dad and mingle with most of the crew, which includes three grandpas, an uncle and two friends. With the kids’ presence, we often have four generations of our farm family in the same field!

To the kids’ delight, Grandma delivers a hot supper, such as roast, meatloaf, hot sandwiches and pork chops. She is our primary farm family cook. I pitch in with full and partial evening meals throughout the season. The guys are as eager as the kids for this meal, an anticipated segment of their day. Preparing food for about eight people nightly requires prudent stocking-up for us, as we live 22 miles from a city grocery store. The routine task requires commitment and dedication, but broken down we show love and care through cooking. We extend the same care to how we farm.

Most often, the evening meals are threaded with happiness that harvest is progressing. Yet, some days can be stressful, such as when a field’s production is disappointing, machinery breaks down, or field conditions prove challenging. Regardless, the guys greet the kids with smiles on their evening picnic in the field.

Our 5-year-old daughter turns 6 this week. Having a baby during harvest is a blog entry in itself, but for now I’ll quickly say it’s hard to work in a family party. Instead of waiting for a rainy day, we’re taking the meal, cake, homemade ice cream and presents to the field this year. She’ll feel like a queen at her princess-themed harvest party.


Joanie Stiers
Williamsfield, IL

While most of the animals go to market, we also fill our own freezer with the animals we raise on our farm. I treat all our animals with the same care and have pride in the animals that go to market.  The meal just seems to be more satisfying when I know how much work went into the meal, and it sure does taste great!

My dad has always had a large garden.  He probably got that from his father, my grandfather, as I can remember as a child; my grandfather would put out 6 dozen tomato plants and what seemed like miles of potatoes.  Also my grandfather started at a young age planting melons and my father has continued that on our farm. We have grown “Scholl” melons for 103 years, by saving back seeds from the best melons each year.

Our family likes to grow plants and animals because we enjoy having great things to eat!

Brent Scholl
Polo, Illinois