{"id":33887,"date":"2016-03-09T10:37:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T16:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=33887"},"modified":"2016-03-09T13:36:53","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T19:36:53","slug":"janies-farm-organics-takes-family-farming-to-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/janies-farm-organics-takes-family-farming-to-next-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Janie\u2019s Farm Organics takes family farming to next generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Martin<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s lunchtime. After a chilly March morning of planting in the downstate Iroquois County\u00a0field, Harold Wilken sets the table. His wife, high school teacher Sandy Wilken, serves bowls of her black bean chowder to the farm\u2019s employees – son Ross Wilken, nephew Tim Vaske, bookkeeper Gerry Lunt, farm owner Ryan Wolfe and neighbor Lucas Haut. Nearly every day, the group gathers for this lunchtime tradition, bringing them together as a family rather than just employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to share ideas with one another about how to be more efficient or what we can do to help each other out,\u201d Harold Wilken said.<\/p>\n

Since the organic farm\u2019s founding in 2005, Harold Wilken considers himself \u201cvery blessed\u201d to work with such a fine group of people. Through their hard work and dedication, Janie\u2019s Farm Organics continues to grow. None of it, however, would be possible without Harold Wilken\u2019s own perseverance and dedication to organic farming.
\n<\/p>\n

Born into a farming family in Iroquois County, Harold Wilken grew up on a conventional farm – one that used pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals in its fields. His great-grandfather homesteaded in Illinois in 1882. Today, Harold Wilken owns part of the original homestead.<\/p>\n

In 1982, Harold Wilken began his own conventional farm. The next year, he and Sandy Wilken married. The two met at the the county fair, and\u00a0she, too, came\u00a0from a conventional farming family.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s and ’90s, few farmers farmed organically, though the demand for organic food steadily grew. Amid controversy over what constituted organic, Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, which authorized a national standard of organic food and fiber production. The act ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set standards and regulations for producers, handlers and certifiers working with organic foods and fibers. In 2002, the final standards were issued.<\/p>\n

Conventional and organic corn production costs and returns per planted acre in the Midwest, 2010<\/h2>\n

[field name=”chart”]<\/p>\n

This snapshot comparison of conventional versus organic corn shows how organic corn is becoming more profitable than conventional corn. Source: USDA (Alison Martin\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n

At that time, Harold Wilken still conventionally farmed his land, but the thought of transitioning to organic farming hovered in his mind. Organic crops sold at higher prices, and the practices promoted sustainability.<\/p>\n

But turning a field from conventional to organic farming doesn\u2019t happen overnight. Pesticides must be dissipated from the soil. The whole process takes 36 months. During that time, the yield of the acres is usually lower, and the crops sell at conventional prices – much lower than organic prices. For farmers transitioning to organic farming, these years can be financially difficult.<\/p>\n

For help, Harold Wilken turned to Lunt, then his banker at Farmers State Bank in nearby Danforth, Illinois. Lunt had known Harold Wilken since he started in 4-H, and he knew what Harold Wilken wanted to do would be a long endeavor.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t just wake up and think \u2018I\u2019m an organic farmer,\u2019\u201d Lunt said.<\/p>\n

With Lunt\u2019s help and his family\u2019s encouragement, Harold Wilken started transitioning his fields from conventional to organic in 2004. At the time, his biggest fear was what would his neighboring farmers think.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think there\u2019s peer pressure with teenage girls,\u201d Harold Wilken jokes, \u201cyou\u2019ve never met German farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harold Wilken recalls a number of his neighbors doubting his decision, but he refused to let the nay-sayers bring him down.<\/p>\n

In 2005, Janie\u2019s Farm Organics was born. For all the farm\u2019s successes, Harold Wilken says it wouldn\u2019t be possible without his late daughter, Janie Wilken. He thinks of her as his \u201cadvocate on the other side,\u201d and he remembers how she never knew a stranger. He says she loved to play sports – mostly so she could get to know the people on the other team. She passed away in a car accident in 2001 at the age of 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it made sense when we were coming up with a farm name that we dedicate it to her,\u201d Harold Wilken said.<\/p>\n

Janie’s Farm Organics produces corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, pumpkins, black beans, alfalfa, popcorn and seed corn. Roughly 10 percent of the land\u00a0that Wilken now\u00a0farms is his. The remaining 90 percent of the land is owned by other farmers who believe in organic farming but have conventionally farmed their fields. They hired him to transition and farm their fields. Most find him by word-of-mouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a person wants to farm organically,\u201d Harold Wilken says, \u201cthey find us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 2,370 acres that Harold Wilken farms, 1,900 acres are USDA-certified organic. Another 370 acres are in second-year transition, and 100 acres are in first-year transition.<\/p>\n

Once Janie\u2019s Farm Organics began growing, the farm needed more helping hands, and it became a true family affair. Ross Wilken grew up helping on the farm and started farming for himself when he was 15. After graduating from the University of Illinois in 2013, he started working full time on the farm and now farms 450 acres by himself.<\/p>\n

Ross Wilken isn\u2019t the only Millennial farmer. Vaske joined the team three years ago and is farming his first 80 acres. He grew up on a cattle farm in Kentucky and used to tell Harold Wilken how much he\u2019d like to come work for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe careful what you wish for,\u201d Harold Wilken jokes.<\/p>\n

Another farmer, Wolfe, came to Janie\u2019s Farm Organics eight years after Harold Wilken began the organic transition. He owned a grass-fed dairy farm, but wanted to get out of milking. He liked the idea of going organic and asked Harold Wilken to transition his conventional farm to an organic farm. Today he works mainly\u00a0as the farm’s\u00a0tractor mechanic.<\/p>\n

Lunt came to the farm part-time after retiring from the banking industry. After working in an environment where people, he said,\u00a0shouted and screamed at each other, he appreciates working in a \u201clow-pressure, low-stress environment\u201d with Harold Wilken and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir ability to get things done, to work at it and get it done right is evident,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Harold Wilken\u2019s passion for organic farming even inspired his young neighbor, Lucas Haut, who now works part-time on the farm during the school year and summer.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Illinois Department of Agriculture awarded Harold Wilken the 2015 R.J. Vollmer Award for Sustainable Agriculture,<\/a>\u00a0for which he felt “very thankful.”<\/p>\n

Today Harold Wilken continues to dream up new ways to expand the farm. Sandy Wilken calls him the \u201cmake-it-happen man\u201d of the farm.\u201d He says they\u2019re considering new opportunities such as malting processing for breweries, and this fall, he hopes to begin milling his own grains into flour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel good about what I\u2019m doing,\u201d Harold Wilken said. \u201cMy landowner feels good about what I\u2019m doing. My bankers feel good about what I\u2019m doing. We continue to be blessed by people that come into our lives and situations that come into our lives. So I think the man upstairs is happy about it too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janie’s Farm Organics is preparing for another year. (Janie’s Farm Organics via Facebook<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Martin It\u2019s lunchtime. After a chilly March morning of planting in the downstate Iroquois County\u00a0field, Harold Wilken sets the table. His wife, high school teacher Sandy Wilken, serves bowls of her black bean chowder to the farm\u2019s employees – son Ross Wilken, nephew Tim Vaske, bookkeeper Gerry Lunt, farm owner Ryan Wolfe and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":35331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,585],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-winter-2016"],"yoast_head":"\nJanie\u2019s Farm Organics takes family farming to next generation - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/janies-farm-organics-takes-family-farming-to-next-generation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Janie\u2019s Farm Organics takes family farming to next generation - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Alison Martin It\u2019s lunchtime. 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