I will have spent 12-plus hours per day with my parents and brother in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Yet, we still make time to gather for a turkey dinner.
I work year-round with the people who raised me, and we gather for the holidays, too. That’s a common phenomenon for farmers in Illinois, where an overwhelming 96% of farms are family-owned and -operated.
That means families – not faceless corporations – make most decisions about how food, feed and biofuels are grown. Those decision-makers may include spouses, siblings, cousins, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and even in-laws and grandparents serving as the CEOs, treasurers and human resource managers of the farms that cover a majority of the state’s landscape.
During the fall harvest, Dad gathers the grain and I move it by tractor or truck. Between planting and harvest seasons, Mom and I handle bills, record-keeping and personnel matters from facing desks. My brother and I talk daily, representing the next generation to manage the details of a modern-day farm that employs local residents who feel like family.
The oldest kids work in the family business, too. You could call them the interns. Grandpa worked the fields with us until age 85 and sat at the head of the family dinner table at Christmas. He was our advisory board until his passing.
See more: Farmers Share a Steadfast Commitment to the Land Through Generations
Surveys tell us many consumers think corporations run most farms and that families operate less than half of the Illinois farms they see. Instead, families actually live and work on farms and dominate their ownership.
Some farms support small families, and others support big families. And some of them are featured at wearethe96.org as part of an educational campaign led, in part, by the Illinois Farm Bureau along with the Illinois Beef Association, IL Corn, Illinois Pork Producers Association, Illinois Soybean Association and Midwest Dairy.
Many of my cousins, aunts and uncles share careers in agriculture as well, so table talk at even the biggest of family holiday gatherings often turns to farming at both the adult and kid tables. Tractors, commodity prices, agronomic practices, land prices, weed pressure, weather and cattle thread the conversations. The talk would turn to turkey only if we raised the birds.
See more: Tech-Savvy Farmers Spend All Day On Screens – Even While Driving Farm Equipment
About the author: Joanie Stiers farms with her family in West-Central Illinois, where they grow corn, soybeans, hay and cover crops and raise beef cattle, backyard chickens and farm kids.
