Small Town Girl - Rosie Sanderson

Today we welcome small town girl and farm kid Rosie Sanderson who shares her family's proud farming history and tells her story with the hope of educating others about farming and agriculture. 

If I told you I grew up in a town with a population of 48, you would probably assume that I grew up with that typical “small town girl” story… and you would be correct. Anything you can think of to insert into a small town girl story could probably be applied to my childhood: I learned how to drive a Super M tractor before I learned how to drive a car, I crashed a go-kart or two into my dad’s grain bins, I spent my summers showing cattle, was constantly begging my parents for a horse (which I still haven’t gotten, by the way), and I had decided by age 4 that I was going to be a veterinarian when I grew up!

I was raised on a livestock and grain farm in northern Illinois. (No, not all of northern Illinois is Chicago! Population 48, remember?) My dad farmed with his dad and brother, so I was lucky enough to grow up with my dad, uncle, and grandpa at our farm every day. When I was little, we always had pigs out on the pasture at our house. I can remember riding out to the pasture in the truck with my dad to check the piglets, but he always made me stay in the truck (much to my dismay) because sows are very protective.

My brother Trent and I checking pigs with dad.

As I got older, our farm shifted from pigs to cattle. I got my first bucket calf when I was 7, and I was in love! I named her Wise-Guy (don’t ask me why, I don’t get it either). To this day, my grandpa tells the story about how sick my Wise-Guy got when she was just a small calf, and how I would lay in her calf hutch and sleep with her because I didn’t want her to be alone. As an experienced livestock farmer, of course my grandpa thought “Great, she is going to get attached to this calf and it’s not going to survive.” Well, she did! In fact, she is the cow that started what is now our herd of over 50 cattle. 15 years later, she is still on pasture at my parent’s farm. 

Me with my 15-year-old cow Wise-Guy.

With the help of Wise-Guy, I started showing cattle in 4-H when I was 8 and continued to show calves from our farm until the summer of 2008 when I moved to central Illinois to attend Illinois State University. Moving to college was a huge change for me. Not because it was away from home, family, friends, and grandma’s cookin’… but because these people had no clue about anything agriculture!

As soon as people found out I was an agricultural animal science major, the first question was always “Wait, you are from a REAL farm???” I thought to myself “Who are these people and where did they come from!” Where I grew up, everyone I knew was another farm kid. I had never met anyone that hadn’t seen a cow before. I thought I must have met the only people on this earth who had never been to a farm. People would ask me about chocolate milk coming from brown cows, brown eggs being healthier than white, if cow-tipping was a real thing… and all I could do was laugh! Were these people serious?

As I made my way through college and met more people, I realized that this wasn’t an exclusive group of people who had never been exposed to farming. In fact, I began to feel like the weird one because I HAD experienced these things first-hand. I started to realize that people wanted to know about farming, but they didn’t know where to go for the information. They didn’t have access to farming like I did growing up. This was a problem, and it was here that my passion for discussing farming and food production with farmers and urban folks alike. So I quit laughing when people asked me what I thought were silly questions, because I was their closest connection to farming. If they couldn’t ask me about these things, where did I expect them to go for their answers? 

My family in front of the house in Norway that our ancestors
left 170 years ago!

In 2011, my family had the amazing opportunity to travel to Norway and go to the farm that our ancestors left in 1843. We feel so lucky that we got the experience to stand in the house that they lived in and explore the farm that they left to bring us to where we are today. Farming has been in the family for longer than record books have been around! It is hard to wrap your head around how far we have come but how much has stayed the same, too.

I still have some cattle on pasture at my parent’s farm today, but I hope to move them to my own farm someday, just like all of my ancestors have done. When I have my own farm, I know that I will take with me the important lessons that I learned growing up on our family farm; including the importance of sustainability. Both crop and livestock production are jobs that come with a responsibility to conserve the environment, and that is a responsibility that my family has always taken seriously. Today our farm is more sustainable than ever with the help of new technologies. If that interests you, you can learn more about what we do at our farm’s website: www.sandersonag.com. In 2010, our farm even received an award for Illinois Soil & Water Conservation Family of the year from Orien Samuelson!

My family receiving a conservation award from Orien Samuelson.

One thing I wish people understood about my farm family is that we want to answer your questions! Farming is our livelihood, our history, and our passion. We take pride in what we do. If you have a question about agriculture, why not go straight to the source and ask a farmer?

I love what I do, and I think most farmers would say the same thing if you asked them. I feel so blessed to have been raised in “God’s Country” where I learned the importance of hard-work, responsibility, and most recently the importance of sharing what I know with people like you! 

Riding my mare, one of the many perks of living in the country!

If you ever have a food-production related question but don’t know where to start, visit my blog, Unpolished Boots, or facebook page and ask me! I will always be happy to answer your questions or get you in contact with someone who can!

Thank you Rosie for the fantastic feature! Remember - if you or someone you know is involved in farming, ranching, or the agricultural industry and would like to share your story here please contact us! YOU could be the next Face of Agriculture! 

Standing Oaks Enterprise - Family & Agriculture

Today we welcome Sam Wildman as he tells us about his family farm - Standing Oak Enterprises - and how his family works together and advocates for agriculture and swine production. 

Standing Oaks Enterprises is the name of our family farm. The name comes from an old oak grove that is located on one of our farms. My father always told me he named it that way because it represented a firm, simple & long-lasting entity. Our family & our farm only exist because of the grace of God, our commitment to the Lord and the resounding faith we have all been raised with. 

My name is Sam Wildman, I am 21 years old - studying agribusiness & economics with a minor in agriculture communications at The Ohio State University. I represent over 200 years of agricultural tradition on essentially the same farm as we started on. I am the second of four children (Kim, Mindy, Simon & I) and represent the eighth generation to be involved with our farm which now raises pigs, corn and soybeans. 

Our farm, located in South Charleston, OH, an hour west of Columbus and only an hour and 15 minutes north of Cincinnati puts us near the extreme edge of the corn belt. We are also only one hour north of where the glaciers pass stops and where the rolling hills of southern Ohio begin.

We raise 650 sows (mommy pigs) which produce roughly 18,000 pigs for market every year. The pig business is our livelihood and the grain we raise is specifically to offset some of our feed costs. On 700 acres we are able to raise enough grain to feed our herd for about half a year. 

My dad, Charles Wildman is the owner & primary caretaker of our farm. He oversees daily care of our pigs which includes nutrition, health, breeding, birthing & weaning baby pigs. We have a few employees (including myself and my older sister) who help with daily care whenever he needs us. We then have six finishing barns located in other parts of the state, owned by other farm families who raise our pigs from the time they leave the nursery (45 lbs.) until the time they are harvested (263 lbs.). 

Dad holds a seat on the Ohio Pork Producers board of directors, National Pork Board’s swine welfare committee, and is very involved in other advocacy programs with these two groups. Dad and I have become very involved in promoting agriculture, especially pork through social media outlets such as blogging, twitter & facebook. Transparency is something that we see is very beneficial for the relationship between agriculture and the consumers who buy our products.

We are in the process of becoming a partner in what is probably the most exciting thing to happen in the pork industry. We will be getting out of the sow and birthing business this winter and converting to a wean to finish farm where we will raise around 25,000 pigs a year for market in our nurseries and then in our finishers I spoke of earlier. The exciting part is that as we move towards more transparency in the industry we must do things to show others how we raise pigs on a commercial farm. This will be happening in Indiana at Fair Oaks Farms as well as on our farm. I encourage you to read more about it here.

My whole family has been raised with a strong Christian faith. My mom, Carol plays the piano every Sunday at church and is the praise band coordinator. My father is also involved at church as the finance elder and all of us kids are involved in different activities with the church.

The most important thing I have learned from my parents and my involvement in agriculture as I grow is to simply be yourself, remain true to your beliefs and stand firm for what you are passionate for. In my life, that is God & agriculture. 

If you enjoyed this feature and want to know more about us or have questions about anything please look us up and ask us. You can find more about us here - Sam's blog, Charles' blog, Carol's blog, Sam's twitter, Charles' twitter or on Facebook. 

Thanks Sam for the fantastic feature! Young people like Sam are the future of agriculture and we are thanksful to be able to share their stories. Be sure to check out the Wildman family blogs, twitter accounts, and Facebook page. 

If you or someone you know should be featured on Faces of Agriculture, please contact us - we need your story now! 

Kricket and Gussie Keetch

Today we travel to Utah and meet Kricket and Gussie Keetch. FFA and 4-H members. These girls are learning ranch life and livestock handling first hand!

We have been born and raised in Central Utah, both our parents came from agriculture backgrounds. Our dad grew up raising horses with his dad and training colts. He put himself through college shoeing horses. He rode saddle broncs in college and the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association) for about 7 years. Our mom grew up on a small farm, they always had horses and raised their own beef. After being married for several years, our parents started their own small business, now called Keetch Cowboy Gear. Our dad, Mike Keetch, is a saddle-maker and part-time machinist, and our mom, Cindy, is a chap maker. We have always had horses growing up and as we (Kricket and Gussie) have gotten older, we have really come to love and enjoy the Californio style of horsemanship and stock handling. 

We, like most agriculture in our area, live on a small farm with horses, a few cows, chickens and a dog or two. We have a small arena to practice in and love to ride in the mountains. We take a week long pack trip once a year and enjoy the outdoors immensely. We have been blessed with friends and opportunities to do ranch work; sorting cattle, pushing cows up the mountain in the spring, gathering in the fall, doctoring cattle, work a feedlot, and our favorite, branding with several area ranches.

Kricket, now eighteen, was able to learn how to make a basic 17 strand cinch when she was about 13. Since then, she has learned to make other styles of cinches. She has learned to dye her own mohair, do different designs and people's brands. One of her cinches goes on all her dad's saddles and she has built her own clientele for Kricket's Custom Cinches. Kricket joined FFA as a freshman and has since been very involved. She was her chapter's Finance Committee Chairman, then Secretary, and was chapter President her senior year. Her SAE (supervised agricultrual experience) project was her cinch business and taking care of and using her horses. She has won various awards on the state level and was one of the top 4 individuals in the state for the Star State Agribusiness award.

Gussie, age fifteen, is naturally gifted with horses. She has great "feel" and is able to achieve the move she's trying to get from the horse. She loves horses and couldn't imagine her life without them. She expresses these thoughts and feelings through her cowboy poetry. She loves to write and has earned literary awards all through school since the first grade. Recently she had her poems published in Ranch and Reata magazine, along with a short story and pictures of her. She helps her dad or mom with any leather work they need and enjoys hanging out in the saddle shop.

In 2009 Kricket was able to participate in the 4-H Working Ranch Horse Competition. It is a fairly new addition to 4-H so for those of you unfamiliar with it, each contestant has to take a written test on their knowledge of horses and cattle, complete a reining pattern, box a cow and take it down the fence and turn it each way, sort three cows out of a herd in numerical order, head up to three cows out of a herd in 90 seconds, and heel a cow and lay it down in less than 90 seconds and use the same horse for the whole thing. (someone heads the given cow for you). In 2010 Kricket and Gussie participated. It has been an awesome experience and gave us awesome opportunities to meet other kids, like us, from around the entire state. This goes hand-in-hand with practical ranch work which we love to participate in every chance we get.

Thanks Kricket and Gussie for the great feature! You can follow these girls and their adventures on their blog Boots, Braids and Big Loops!

Are you a member or past member of FFA and 4-H? How did these organizations help you get involved in agriculture? We want to hear your story! Leave a comment or contact us!

If you would like to be a featured farmer or know someone who should be, leave a comment below - or check out our contact page. To learn more about the Faces of Agriculture Project click here.

Nicole Markway

Today we travel to Missouri and meet Nicole Markway, beef producer, student and agvocate for agriculture!

Hello from Eugene, Missouri - population so small, we don’t even have a population sign! But population doesn’t matter in the place that I call home. My name is Nicole Markway and I am one of the many different faces of agriculture.

Our Family - My sister (Bethany), Dad, Mom & Me.

I am currently majoring in Agricultural Business at Missouri State University, where my older sister also graduated from and will return to in the fall to get her Master's in Agricultural Education. My life revolves around agriculture and our small 200 acre beef farm that my family owns and operates 30 miles south of Missouri's state capital, Jefferson City. I also own four horses which allows me to do one of my favorite hobbies - rodeo. 

My horse, Chex, during pole bending.

Our beef farm strays away from the typical life of beef farmers. After weaning the calves, we keep them near the house allow for daily supplements of grain while also still having access to grass pastures.

Some of the calves after being weaned.

When the calves reach about 1,000 pounds, we return the heifers to our cow herd and keep the steers in a smaller feed lot typesetting with twice daily grain rations and hay. We then sell the steers at live weight price to consumers around the area who are looking for farm raised beef. We haul the steers to the USDA approved processing plant and the consumer is then in charge of specifying what cuts they want and picking the beef up. We are in the process of selling USDA approved beef at local farmers markets.

Working some of the calves before weaning.

A typical summer day on our farm will consist of Dad feeding the calves before heading off to work. Working for the National Guard allows him to get off work at three and get home at three thirty in the afternoon. He then feeds and checks the calves and cow herd. After feeding, Dad will do other work around the farm, such as brush hogging, moving cows to different pastures, or working on farm equipment. I get home at five thirty from my summer job to help with the cows or ride my horses. 

Hauling hay.

As beef farmers, our family takes educating the public about our food very seriously. We are constantly striving to inform the consumers about what happens to their beef, both before and after processing. We encourage our customers to ask the questions that are on their minds. If you have any questions yourself, go visit my blog and get those questions answered!

Thanks Nicole for the great feature! You can learn more about this country girl and her passion for agriculture on her blog Where the Blacktop Begins. 

If you would like to be a featured farmer or know someone who should be, leave a comment below - or check out our contact page. To learn more about the Faces of Agriculture Project click here.