We are part of God’s good creation. Here in Central Illinois, we are surrounded by wide-open farm fields. Though many of us live in urban places, the vast majority of Central Illinois land is used to grow crops. We are surrounded by some of the most fertile soil in the world, producing corn, soybean, and even other vegetable crops. As you travel through the region, do you notice planting season, crop rows, contour plowing, harvest, rivers, small creeks winding though fields, and even the ditches that separate the fields from the road? Do you know that we are facing a farmland stewardship crisis here, and that soil productivity and the health of rivers and streams is at stake?

Farmers Supporting Independent Agriculture (FSIA) is organizing on farm stewardship issues facing local family farmers and rural communities, which are also issues that impact the urban places throughout Central Illinois. Local family farmers who have a vested interest in sound farmland stewardship, maintaining soil fertility, and keeping waterways clean and clear are being pushed off the land they have farmed for years by mega-farm operators who are moving into the region. These mega-farm operators are farming in an unsustainable manner, cutting corners to farm more quickly and reduce costs. Their short-term gain has a long-term cost, namely the fertility of the soil and cleanliness of waterways. Visit www.illinoisfsia.org to see the environmental damage mega-farm operators are doing in local farm communities.

So what can we do to change this trend? Buy locally, support local farmers, rent your farmland to a local farmer, tell your friends/relatives/church to rent their farmland to local farmers, educate yourself and others about environmental stewardship, participate in IPA leadership training, organize with IPA and FSIA, become a leader in your community, and pray!

God’s creation is indeed good. Let’s work together to keep it that way. – by Joel Janisewski

In the last 20 years, 300,000 family farms have gone under. “A Time to Act,” a landmark study published in 1998 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Commission on Small Farms pointed the finger at federal policies that give financial advantage to corporate agribusinesses. As a result, family farmers cannot afford to compete with corporate agribusiness.

1. Depressed rural communities, (ISU agricultural economist, Patrick O’Rourke, estimates that Logan County loses $1,890,000 annually due to corporate farmers who fail to re-invest in the rural communities in which they farm)
2. Increased percentages of food dollars going to middle-men instead of to the farmers themselves (farmers’ share of the consumer dollar has dropped from $0.37 in 1980 to $0.23 today),
3. Increased environmental pollution,
4. Increased use of chemicals and additives in our food, and
5. An increasing corporate stronghold on the farming industry. In the beef industry, for example, just four firms now control 80 percent of the market, and the four largest hog processors control 60 percent of the pork market (www.oxfamamerica.org).

One of IPA’s newest member groups is Farmers Serving Independent Agriculture (FSIA). 25 Logan County farm families joined together to form the charter group of FSIA.

FSIA member, Larry Huelskuetter, said that they approached IPA to help them organize because “I had gone to a IPA meeting on predatory lending, so I was familiar with the organizing group.”

Members participated in three leadership training sessions before initiating their strategy, which began with a media campaign. Huelskuetter just wants “a level playing field…By keeping the local farmer in business, the community benefits.”