DDC_AgMag_ Fall 2022

DeKalb

County FALL 2022

agmag

CROP RECAP

CORN BETTER THAN EXPECTED; SOYBEANS, NOT SO MUCH

DeKalb County

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mag

4 HARVEST RECAP

The 2022 corn crop exceeds expectations, but soybeans don’t live up to farmers’ hopes

6 BUYERS FROM ABROAD

Sycamore farmer hosts soybean importers from European Union on DeKalb County farm

9

FARMER’S DREAM MEETS REALITY

Family Farm Meats sells beef, pork, chicken, lamb from on-farm store

12 EXCELLENCE

IN AGRISCIENCE

Three Sycamore FFA students named national finalists for their projects

Published by Shaw Media Project Manager: Lisa Angel Design & Layout: Julie Barichello

Articles and advertisements are property of Shaw Media. No portion of DeKalb County Ag Mag may be produced without written consent of the publisher.

DeKalb County

HARVEST RECAP

THAN EXPECTED

CORN CROP BETTER

SOYBEANS, ON THE OTHER HAND, NOT SO MUCH

As farmers complete the harvest of corn and soybeans in DeKalb County and throughout northern Illinois, the corn crop overall has met or exceeded expectations for yield.

Soybeans, on the other hand, haven’t quite lived up to farmers’ hopes.

“I don’t know if I would call it record just yet, but extremely good yield potential and yields so far on corn,” said Jim Donnelly, a DEKALB Asgrow technical agronomist.

Donnelly, who farms in Bureau County, but whose territory covers DeKalb County and northern Illinois, said farmers are pleased with what they’ve seen for yields on both crops, but corn is the standout this year.

“Farmers are really happy with corn and somewhat pleased with soybeans, not quite as excited on soybeans as they thought they would be,” he said.

While drought in areas in August and September may have held back soybean yields, the warm, dry weather did help farmers get a quick start to harvest and has helped harvest progress.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent Crop Progress and Condition report for Illinois, farmers in the state had harvested 78% of the state’s corn crop and 89% of the state’s soybean crop as of Oct. 30.

“Thankfully, we’ve had some fantastic weather to be able to make a lot of progress on harvest for both corn and soybeans, as well as tillage,” Donnelly said.

This year’s harvest started slightly later. The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service numbers reflect that.

Farmers had harvested 81% of their corn crop by this time last year, while progress on soybeans last year was far behind this year, with only 74% of the

By Jeannine Otto AgriNews Publications

state’s soybean crop harvested at the same time in 2021.

“We did get started a little bit later than normal. Some of that had to do with later planting dates. There was a lot of corn and soybeans that were planted in the middle part of May, which isn’t extremely late, but is getting toward the later part of the planting season,” Donnelly said.

Part of the soybean yield issues also were caused by issues early in the growing season. The corn crop, too, struggled early in the season as wet and cold weather held the progress of the crop back.

“The crop tended to mature pretty slowly. We did have some soybeans that were planted in the end of April and the first few days in May and a lot of it struggled to come up. We had some population issues, mostly in soybeans. What was planted early really did struggle to come through, so that led to some thin stands in some areas,” Donnelly said.

Other challenges for the crop included dry periods throughout the growing season.

“When we look at DeKalb County, we did have some dry areas in the middle part of the growing season. Some producers are still battling with corn rootworm and those situations, so they saw less yield because of the pest pressure,” Donnelly said.

As harvest wraps up, concerns about a drought now and a drought going forward into 2023 remain.

Donnelly said that while there is little farmers can do to prepare for a possible drought in the future, they can manage for dry conditions today.

“I don’t think we need to try to outguess Mother Nature because usually we get burned trying to do that. If we are sitting in dry soil conditions and putting fertilizer on now, we need to make sure that anhydrous ammonia is sealing properly or that we just have enough soil moisture to make sure it stays there. So, farmers can do that,” Donnelly said.

Jim Donnelly, DEKALB Asgrow

Overlooking nothing. Ready for everything.

Farmers and ranchers, the world relies on you. And you deserve a bank that’s rooted in the details and dedicated to helping you do more.

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Member FDIC

Ryan Frieders (second from left), of Sycamore, hosted two groups of visitors from Europe this summer on his farm. The two groups included buyers and end users of U.S. and Illinois soybeans.

From EUROPE SYCAMOREto

Farmer hosts soybean buyers on local farm

By Jeannine Otto | AgriNews Publications

Ryan Frieders had a visit from some hometown folks on his farm this summer. Not exactly “hometown,” but among a visiting group of soybean buyers and end users from the European Union were buyers who hailed from the EU nation of Luxembourg.

“My family is from Luxembourg and some of the buyers in the first group were from there. That was a neat connection for me. I’ve never been there, but they knew where my ancestors had lived,” Frieders said.

Frieders and his wife, Deanne, and four children raise soybeans, corn, cattle and hay at their farm in rural Sycamore.

Frieders is the District 1 director for the Illinois Soybean Association.

“One of our goals is promoting exports and trade. They were looking for someone close to Chicago, because they have groups coming from Europe. I happen to be pretty close and they asked if I was interested in hosting,” he said.

This year, Frieders was able to offer an additional benefit for the visitors — a close-up view of the product they buy.

“This year, where I live, we had a soybean field right around our property,” he said.

With the visits happening after planting and before harvest, Frieders said there was only minimal preparation that needed to be done for the guests.

But that did include one important “housekeeping” chore before the first group of visitors arrived.

“We pride ourselves on having weed-free fields. In fact, there was one weed growing out in the field and that morning, I walked out and pulled it because I didn’t want them to see even one weed out there,” Frieders said.

Weed control, seed technology, sustainability and conservation were the topics that came up most often during the visits.

“They were really interested in soil conservation practices and they were really interested in production per acre, if that is increasing or decreasing and as it is increasing, how we are doing that and achieving those increased yields,” Frieders said.

On that topic, Frieders could speak to the progress of yields through genetically modified seeds and seed technology.

“In my farming career, GMOs have become a mainstay. When I started farming, they weren’t widespread. If our soybeans yielded in the 40s, we thought that was really good, back in the early 1990s. Now, we are pushing 70 bushels to the acre with advances in genetics and all the improvements in seed breeding,” Frieders said.

For Eileen Urish, trade and exports manager for the Illinois Soybean Association, who helps arrange the visits, along with a team from the U.S. Soybean Export Council, the Frieders farm and family are the ideal hosts.

“The Europeans want to talk about sustainability. With O’Hare being an international airport, we scan an hour or two radius around Chicago and the suburbs for host farms. With conservation and

sustainability in mind, we have a lot of farmers who have those practices at the forefront of what they do,” she said.

Frieders was able to talk about his own farm’s conservation practices with his visitors.

“We talked about our Conservation Reserve acreage that we have to protect our watershed. We talked about our waterways. We talked about modern soil testing and fertility and using new genetics to improve yield along with being able to take advantage of all the weed control options,” he said.

The EU, as a trading bloc, is the third largest importer of U.S. soybeans, importing 4.18 million metric tons of soybeans from the United States in 20192020.

The top EU nations that are customers for U.S. soybeans include Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and France.

Urish added that the EU market for U.S. soybeans has the potential to grow.

“A lot of the EU countries import for both food grade, which is really common now, as we see the development of plant-based protein sources, and also for a lot of livestock production,” she said.

A second group that visited briefly on the farm later in the summer was interested in transportation, in how soybeans from Illinois can get to countries in Europe.

“We talked a lot about transportation with that group. They wanted to know where our markets were, where we delivered to, how much of our soybeans were exported versus how much were used domestically. We talked about the Illinois River and the river markets in Ottawa. We talked about some of the other options, like the container market in Joliet. Some of these buyers source soybeans through the container market, so they were very interested in that and getting the beans from Joliet to the East Coast and over to Europe,” Frieders said.

A variety of individual cuts like these rump roasts are available for customers shopping at the Family Farm Meats.

Customers can buy beef, pork, chicken and lamb.

DREAM MEETS REALITY

Young farmer turns goal of a meat business into on-farm store

By Martha Blum • AgriNews Publications

Customers shopping at the Family Farm Meats store will find a wide variety of products and the farmer at the counter ready to answer questions about their meat purchase.

Jenny Flint opened Family Farm Meats in July 2014 on her family farm just north of Hinckley with significant help from her family.

“I wanted a part-time job where I could work from home because I didn’t want to put my kids in daycare,” Flint said.

“My parents had moved to Maple Park and they were trying to sell our family farm,” she said. “I was working at a hog farm and I wanted

to buy our family farm, so I did.”

Customers can purchase individual cuts of beef and pork at the store.

“I sell quarters, halves or whole beef and halves or whole hogs,” Flint said. “I raise the cattle and hogs, I have chickens here for eggs and an Amish family helps me with the chicken I sell.”

Flint added lamb to the store this year.

“We bought four lambs total, and my son, Owen, bought one, which was a neat experience for him,” she said. “He took money out of his piggy bank to buy the lamb.”

Jenny Flint shows some of beef cuts available at the Family Farm Meats store on her farm near Hinckley.

l FAMILY FARM MEATS is located at 16061 McGirr Road, Hinckley. The store is open10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. For more information about Family Farm Meats LLC, go to www.familyfarmmeatsllc.com, or call 815-651-5555.

Owen, who is 8 years old, kept track of the feed costs.

“He weighed out each piece of meat and the meat packages had his name on them,” his mom explained. “He really liked it, so I have dates booked in March for our next round of lambs and this time Owen is buying all of them.”

Flint’s animals are processed at Eickman’s Processing Company in Seward.

“When I first started, I sat in Tom Eickman’s office and told him what I wanted to do,” she said. “He helped me with prices and he gives me ideas where to go with my business in the future.”

Demand for Family Farm Meats has grown into a fulltime business for Flint.

“I’m more expensive than the grocery store, but I have to stay reasonable where people can afford our products,” she noted.

“But once people try a package of ground beef, steak or pork chops, they come back and tell me, ‘Wow, it was such a difference,’” she said. “Then they are willing to pay more for the quality and the meat sells itself.”

At first, Flint sold meat from about 15 head of cattle and 25 to 30 hogs.

“I just booked for 2023, 70 head of cattle and 155 hogs,” she reported.

“I’m booking animals that aren’t even born yet, so it’s taken me a few years to master that to make sure I booked enough dates,” she said. “Eickman’s work with me and they are a really good familyowned business.”

Flint feeds about 40 head of cattle and groups of 20 to 30 hogs on her Hinckley farm.

“My parents have a cow-calf herd and now they’re in the

process of selling the cows,” she said. “They’re going to start feeding cattle for me because the business is too big to feed all the cattle here.”

Support from her parents, Flint said, has been vital to her business.

“Banks aren’t willing to give a lot of money to young kids, but my parents backed me big time,” she stressed.

“My dad runs a trucking company and hauls livestock, but over the past five years he’s gone through tremendous knee issues so he couldn’t drive anymore,” she said. “But God had a plan for us, because dad has guys to drive for him and now he is transitioning over to farming and raising cattle.”

Her parents, Ron and Rhonda Flint, built a new cattle shed for feeding cattle.

“They are expanding as much as I have,” Flint said. “This meat store is my dream, but they have backed me from the beginning and we are growing together.”

New customers find the meat store, through Facebook or the company website.

“I didn’t just want this to be, ‘We raise the meat, so come and buy it,’” Flint said. “I want you see all the work that goes into it.”

Flint spends a lot of time posting information about her farm and store on her Facebook page, Family Farm Meats, LLC.

“You get to see us chopping silage, feeding the cattle, scraping manure and planting corn,” she said. “So many people say they didn’t realize all these things that we do and I want people to see how a steak gets on their plate.”

Sharing her farming story has been rewarding for Flint.

“People are so appreciative

of my family,” she said. “It’s not just me, it’s my boyfriend Jared, my kids and my parents, which customers get to see through Facebook.”

Customers also help Flint with new ideas for her store, like the request for cottage bacon.

“Cottage bacon is from the shoulder instead of the belly and it’s a meatier bacon,” she said. “It is something a customer mentioned to me and now I carry it regularly.”

Another item that was requested by a customer is beef bacon.

“Bacon and ribeyes are the two things I cannot keep up with, but I have amazing customers,” Flint said. “If I’m out, they get something else, so I’m thankful they are understanding.”

Flint remodeled her store last March, but she is continuing to make improvements to her business.

“I just landed a walk-in freezer, so we’re going to

All meat sold at the Family Farm Meats store is frozen. Processing, cutting, packaging and labeling are handled by Eickman’s Processing Company, a USDA-inspected facility.

expand the store so I can attach the freezer,” she said.

The new freezer will provide easier loadout for customers buying larger amounts of meat.

“I can also start doing more bundles with the added space,” Flint said. “Bundles have a variety of cuts that come pre-boxed at a discounted price, and when I offer them online, they sell in like a minute.”

Continuing to expand her business is important for Flint to provide opportunities for her kids, Owen and Jillian.

“That’s my goal, for the kids to take over this business,” she said. “One of Owen’s favorite things is to check people out and the customers are so patient and good to the kids.”

“I knew starting this business was going to be a neat thing to do, but I never dreamt it would be as cool as it is now,” she admitted. “I’ve built relationships with customers that I would never have met if I didn’t open this store.”

AGRISCIENCE LEADERS IN

By Martha Blum • AgriNews Publications

Outstanding work by three members of the Sycamore FFA Chapter earned them the honor of national finalists in the Agriscience Fair at the 95th National FFA Convention.

National winners of the Agriscience Fair were honored during the convention held Oct. 26-29 in Indianapolis.

Allyson Yoakam and Lorelei Darlak worked on a project together.

“We’re very excited that we made it this far,” Yoakam said. “When we won state, we thought it was a good run. Then when we found out we were national finalists, it was crazy.”

The FFA members completed a social systems project.

“We did a survey on the Fair Oaks Farms scandal and how it impacted people’s lives,” Darlak said.

“We had people in our classes and from the community take the survey and we analyzed the data and revenue loss,” Yoakam added.

“We found a lot of people didn’t know about the animal abuse scandal and they really didn’t lose much revenue from the milk,” she said. “They lost a little money in the beginning, but it didn’t affect them much and they went back to regular sales.”

Darlak was surprised with the mixed results from the survey.

“We thought more people would know about it,” she said. “It was a big problem when the video first came out because people were shocked by it.”

This is the first time Darlak has completed an agriscience project.

“At first I thought the agriscience project sounded boring, but when I got into the process of it, it was actually fun,” she said.

During her sophomore year, Yoakam’s agriscience project experimented with the growth of vegetable plants.

“I compared water to watering them with Gatorade,” she said. “They plants actually grew with Gatorade, but they didn’t grow as much and they molded.”

Yoakam attended the convention to be on stage with the other finalists.

“They announced the winners when we were on stage, which was terrifying,” said the high school senior. “I wish we found out before that, but I’m happy we made it this far.”

Darlak was not able to participate in the

award presentation.

“The day we walked the stage was the day of my brother’s wedding and family comes first,” she said.

After graduating from Sycamore High School earlier this year, Darlak is now studying for her associate’s degree in art at Kishwaukee College.

“I hope to go into interior design,” she said.

Drake Slutz’s agriscience project focused on his 56 Shropshire ewes. He used artificial insemination to breed the ewes and ewes that didn’t get pregnant on the first round were rebred with artificial insemination a second time.

“I kept data on the artificially bred and naturally bred ewes,” Slutz said.

“I found that natural breeding is more effective than artificially insemination,” he said.

The high school freshman is considering another agriscience project with his sheep.

“I just used fresh semen for this project,” he said. “I will probably do another project with fresh and frozen semen to see the impact of the different qualities.”

Slutz is interested in a career in the livestock industry.

“I want to be a reproductive specialist and work with artificial insemination for a job,” he said.

FFA students selected as national finalists for outstanding projects

Sycamore FFA members Lorelei Darlak (left) and Allyson Yoakam work on their Agriscience Fair project that earned them a national finalist honor.

Drake Slutz (left) works with one of his Shropshire ewes for his Agriscience Fair project that focused on artificial insemination.