Tag Archives: farming

Fresh Food & Friendly Conversations

At the core of community is the sharing of food. A farmer’s market is a shared space wherein folks meet face to face and talk about food. Perhaps this explains why the number of farmer’s markets nationwide have increased from 1755 in 1996 to 8,144 in 2013. A farmer’s market connects people together. A farmer’s market provides space for friendly conversations with folks who actually have grown, harvested and prepared food. Folks at a farmer’s market share not only the food itself, but also information about how the food is grown and prepared. Shoppers at a farmer’s market can ask questions and express their preferences in face to face conversations with vendors.

‘Walkable space’ is a term used by city planners and developers to refer to a shared space within community that is accessible on foot. There’s really nothing new about this concept—in plain English, we call this space a “park”. Such shared spaces seem to connect people together and enhance the quality of life in a community. Here in DeWitt our farmer’s market is centrally located on the east side of Lincoln Park Thursday afternoons (between 3:30-6:30PM) from May thru October. Although we struggle from time to time with unpleasant weather, on good days many folks seem to enjoy a walk to the market from their homes. There is grass, shade, benches, and picnic tables, and a playground nearby. The DeWitt Farmer’s Market is a relaxing way to get some exercise on a summer afternoon and to visit with neighbors. It doesn’t cost as much money as some other outdoor entertainment. It’s truly a nice walk in the park.

John Ivens, Farmers Market Manager

Found My Way Back to the Farm

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In 2002, I graduated from Central DeWitt. I earned an engineering degree from Iowa State and utilized that degree working at a manufacturer in Central Iowa for 6 years. After 10 years of being away, I moved back to my hometown of DeWitt with my fiancé, Erin. Our decision to move back was rooted in the value of family and opportunity.

Family…there is no better support than family and friends! When asked where we wanted to raise a family, the answer was fairly simple, “DeWitt“! It took some time to get here, but it was easy to say that if we were blessed with being parents, that DeWitt was where we wanted to raise our children. For us, DeWitt is within a matter of minutes of parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins. Having two children, the proximity to this loving network of family and friends, not to mention last-minute babysitters, is great!

DeWitt is a community that has all of the core pillars we believe in: excellent schools, active churches, great local businesses, these are areas we believe to be important. Some may have changed face in the last decade, but the solid foundation of people and places still remain. This is home and this community always feel like family.

Opportunity… I grew up on a family farm a few miles east of DeWitt. Learning the value of hard work was easy to grasp when following in the footsteps of my grandfather, father, and older brother. I learned a much greater appreciation for this lifestyle after moving away and experiencing another shake of life. The opportunity for me to be able to come back and be a part of the farm operation is something I do not take for granted. I am blessed to be able to jump on this fast moving train of row-crop agriculture. Who am I to pass up on such an opportunity? It has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Three years of conversation and planning took place before coming back to the family farm. My wife and I farm our own corn and soybean crops within the Niemann family farming operation. We also own and manage SkyShare, LLC which is an aerial application business that provides custom application of crop care products via aircraft. My family and I have enjoyed the challenge of it all and I am glad to once again call DeWitt home.

Matthew Niemann, DeWitt Family Farmer & owner of SkyShare, LLC

Family Farming in Clinton County

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I was born 38 years ago into a farming family. I have fond memories of my childhood on the farm. I remember helping with sorting pigs back when my dad had a small farrow to finish hog operation. This means we had sow’s that gave birth to baby pigs and we raised them until maturity and sold them to market. I also have memories of riding in tractors and the combine that seemed so big and massive at that young age. Then I moved to town with my mom and spent the majority of my formidable years as a city kid that only had marginal association to the farm. I give this brief but powerful insight into my childhood because now that I have a family of my own I understand as a father what those experiences and memories mean to me as a father as well as what they mean to my own children.

My family has come a long way from when I was a child when we farrowed those 80-100 sows and raised pigs all while planting 1000 acres of corn and soybeans. Over the years we have since stopped raising hogs and are now only crop farmers. Today on an annual basis we plant approximately 6500 acres of corn and soybeans. I say ‘we’ because our operation consists of 5 families, my dad Gary Willimack and his wife Tamra, Brent and Jessica Willimack and their daughter Addison, Jayson and Megan Willimack and their daughter Greyson, Scott and Kassidy Willimack, and myself Matt Willimack and my wife Amanda and our children Mairead and Owen.

I started farming with my family not long after my work off of the farm allowed us the ability to move back to DeWitt which I call home. I now work for Grain Processing Corporation in Muscatine, IA in addition to farming with my family. I started farming with my family because my father Gary has worked hard for many years to build a farming operation that could provide opportunities for his son’s to be a part of production agriculture. We now all work together for common goals. Some of those goals are things like:

Creating a livelihood for those families involved in the operation
Being good stewards of the land, i.e. using technology to be as efficient with things like seed, fertilizer, and chemicals to produce quality grain that helps feed a growing world.
Keep land conservation in the forefront. Strive to leave our mark on the environment as better quality land, water, and air for the next generation.
Perpetuating the legacy my Dad and even my grandfather started by giving their children the opportunity to farm.
Raising our children to understand and appreciate agriculture and how the food they eat gets to the table.

We take pride in the fact that we continue to be a farming family. Our business is farming, but we are a family first, and we hope that our farming business stays that way for generations to come.

Matt Willimack, Agriculture Enthusiast

Agriculture Awareness

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Driving around the vastness of farm acreage outside DeWitt, one might not realize the esteemed value of the land. Or how our local countryside effects the world.

Fruitful Location. Farming is a global business, and it begins right here on the 1,244 farms in Clinton County. Area farmers have the notable benefit of Iowa’s rich and deep soil, ample water supply and long growing seasons which produce more profitable crops. Corn and soybeans are the two thriving crops, but for over 150 years, corn has been Iowa’s dominant crop, the largest producer of corn in the nation for almost two decades. In Clinton County, 198,000 acres of corn were harvested with an average yield of 186.8 bushels per acre and 109,000 acres of soybeans were harvested with an average yield of 50.8 bushels per acre.

The soil isn’t the only local benefit. Here around DeWitt, local farmers have access to major Midwestern and global markets. DeWitt’s crossroads allow farmers the ease to export their harvest and livestock by truck, rail or river to local and global processing plants, which are used across the world for food, fuel, fiber and feed.

Local support comes from the Clinton County Farm Bureau, located in DeWitt, which is dedicated to helping farm families prosper and improve their quality of life. Financial support such as Farm Credit Services of America, First Central State Bank and DeWitt Bank & Trust Company, all located in DeWitt, offer farmers operating lines of credit, livestock loans, equipment financing, and real estate loans to name a few.

Technology. Agriculture businesses such as Park Farms Computer Systems, Ag Spectrum Company, River Valley Co-Op and Kunau Implement Company in DeWitt provide farmers with valuable cutting-edge technologies and education based on proven scientific research. Tractors with GPS systems. Drones capturing pictures and video of crop health. Nutritional systems that address the basic science of plant and soil health. Farmers depend on local business services to offer high-tech equipment and new technology to help increase crop yields and efficiency. An essential outcome when agriculture is responsible to feed today’s world population of 7.3 billion people.

Because of this technology and better understanding of crop management, today’s farmer is more efficient and better stewards of the land. For example, in 1990, one acre of corn fed two head of cattle. Today, 1 acre of corn feeds 1.9 head of cattle, creates 580 gallons of ethanol, 27 gallons of corn oil, and 1.7 tons of CO2 for industrial use.

Economic Impact. Clinton County is an economic powerhouse when it comes to agriculture. There are 417,189 acres of farm land, with the average size farm at 335 acres.

In Clinton County, there are over 70,000 cattle and calves and more than 56,000 hogs and pigs in inventory. 1.7% of all jobs in the county came from livestock production and the market value of livestock sold was $112.7 million. The market value of crops grown was $286.6 million with 17.7% of all jobs in Clinton County coming from crop production.

Overall, agriculture-related industries produce 8,887 jobs, contributing $524 million in wages and over $4.8 million in total sales in Clinton County.

The next time you drive around the rolling hills of farm land outside DeWitt, appreciate the vastness of the rich, deep soil. The livestock managers, agronomists, and scientists we call farmers. And the impact it reaches on a local, regional and global level.

Explore more about how DeWitt Delivers Agriculture!