2020 Spring Farm Outlook

Page 42 2020 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 19, 2020 crops and even better families, and who build their communities all along the way,” said Spangler. “These Master Farmers are leveraging every ounce of skill they have for the greater good.” Prairie Farmer is published 12 times a year for Illinois farm families. Established in 1841, it is the oldest continuously published farm periodical in the United States. GROWMARK, Inc., is a financial sponsor of the award. Like the Master Farmer award, the GROWMARK system was born during the 1920s, when farmer cooperatives first organized the Illinois Farm Supply Co. Today, the brand is known as FS. JOHN AND SUSAN ADAMS: READY TO SERVE John and Susan Adams are well known faces in the Illinois agriculture industry, as the 2020 Master Farmer couple have collectively stepped up for leadership roles dozens of times. They met while attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale and moved back to John’s family farm in Atlanta, Ill., in 1972. While Susan grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, she also has roots in farming, and continues to own 87 acres of family ground in Gallatin County. Together, they’ve grown the Atlanta farmstead to 970 acres since taking it over full time when John’s father retired in 1982. “My dad and I had a small farrow-to- finish hog operation. And then Susan jumped right in,” John says, noting she worked as a teacher for the first year she lived in Atlanta before becoming much more involved in the farm. “Susan and I both enjoyed raising hogs, but it kind of limited our vacation time and ability to participate in ag leadership positions. We dropped the hogs in 1988 and started to get more involved and go on more trips,” he adds. The couple have traveled to 42 states and 20 foreign countries. Often they left home to represent Illinois growers and livestock producers, passing by IL Corn ads that featured their faces in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. They served on the Corn Farmers Coalition national organization for five years, dedicating time to teaching policymakers about agriculture. For someone who admits, “the only thing I ever raised were hamsters” before coming to John’s family farm, Susan says she was quick to learn about livestock management. She’s now the primary grain hauler and grain dryer operator. “I don’t have to be quite as active as I used to since we’ve been full no-till since 1988. John does all the planting and bookkeeping, but I keep things moving during harvest,” Susan says. John and Susan were nominated by IL Corn.