WOODSTOCK — Michele Aavang, a beef farmer in Northeast Illinois, knows all too well the things that happen when agriculture meets urban sprawl.
It may be a wayward hot air balloon landing in a soybean field, a wheat field trampled by a snowmobiler or a close call with a motorist vs. farm machinery on the road.
She was so concerned that McHenry County farmers’ viewpoints weren’t being heard that she became a county board member in 2012. She is one of only three farmers elected to the 24-member board and the only one involved in large-scale agriculture production.
“I thought we (farmers) didn’t have good representation, especially in the western part of the county,” said Aavang, who raises feeder cattle and grows about 1,500 acres of corn, wheat soybeans and hay with her husband, Gary.
The family first settled in McHenry County in the 1840s when it was mainly agriculture, but over the generations, urban and suburban life has encroached on the rural community about 50 miles northwest of Chicago.
“We don’t use the term urban sprawl as much as we did 10 or 15 years ago,” says Jay Howe, an attorney from Iowa who serves on the state’s City Development Board, an organization which works to facilitate governmental cooperation during boundary change proceedings.
That doesn’t mean urban areas aren’t growing, he adds. But it means the issue is not front and center.
Some of that may have to do with the fact there are fewer farmers. Some may be due to the fact that the economic downturn of 2008 slowed building and urban expansion.
Some may be due to a change in attitude by many people who either see any economic growth as good after that downturn or who simply see it as something that has become inevitable.
“I THINK that maybe urban sprawl is overblown,” says Dave Brown, an attorney who serves as president of IP&1031, a small company that deals in 1031 exchanges.
Those exchanges have often been viewed as a way for farmers who live near an urban area to sell land and move further away without incurring a major tax hit.
“Many farmers only have negative things to say about population growth,” Aavang said.
But, for farmers who grow local produce or participate in agri-tourism ventures, there is close access to consumers.
“Nearly all of the municipalities in our county has a farmers market,” said Aavang.
She also took advantage of direct marketing for 11 years, selling beef at farmers’ markets. This is the first year she is selling feeder calves at 500 to 700 pounds instead of finishing the cattle. The change is to make room from her son Grant to introduce dairy cattle back to the operation.
Aavang, who grew up in suburban Chicago, understands the need for communication between urban and rural folks.
“I think there are so many misconceptions out there about modern agriculture,” she said.
She blogs, posts photos on her Facebook page and talks to consumers whenever she can.
Sometimes, her blogs reflect frustrations she has with urbanites who treat privately owned farmland like public property. When some people move to the country, they don’t see an income-generating field — they see empty space ripe for recreational activity, including 4-wheeling and snowmobiling.
A snowmobile trail passes their farm. The family has experienced financial losses to their wheat crop because snowmobilers used fields instead of the marked trails. One even broke through a fence in a field where they have cattle.
“It’s a general lack of respect,” she said.
ONE OF the regular challenges this time of year is moving machinery on roads shared with commuters and tourists.
“Sometimes you feel like you are taking your life into your own hands. There is no tolerance for slow-moving vehicles,” said Aavang, whose family has 21 different landlords with some fields as small as 12 acres. They must drive equipment on the roads and try to do so when it’s not rush hour, but it is often a challenge.
“We had a fatality in our county not long ago,” she said. “Every farmer I talk to has a story to tell of a close call.”
Her neighbor, Tim Watkins, has more than one story to tell about the challenges of coping with speeding traffic. His son was almost hit by a fast-moving vehicle when they were trying to get a cow off the road and back into a field at night. Cautionary flashing lights lit the road along with vehicle lights for safety, but a motorist didn’t slow down and hit the cow.
Some commuters go through ditches to pass on the right.
“We feel like it’s an adrenalin rush for them,” Watkins said.
Watkins has 425 dairy cows and heifers and farms about 1,200 acres of corn, soybeans, alfalfa and wheat.
His family was among those that helped incorporate the village of Greenwood years earlier. They thought it would be good to have a rural community, but in recent years, the village council proposed a $75 tax on all farm equipment that traveled on roads. That was defeated, he said.
“One of the biggest things we face now is people pulling up and treating the farm like it’s a public zoo,” he said.
For unaccompanied visitors, farms with electric fences, PTO shafts and large, moving equipment aren’t safe places.
“We’re thinking about putting up a gate,” Watkins said.
ANOTHER CASUALTY of encroaching suburbia is agricultural-related businesses, Aavang notes.
As farms have been replaced by subdivisions, it isn’t worthwhile for a machinery dealership to operate in some rural areas where they have been for years. Some of the dealerships that have stayed here now cater to lawn equipment buyers instead of farmers.
The trend of people moving from rural to urban areas has been going on for a long time and it isn’t likely to end soon.
The key, Howe says, is to find ways to do it that are least harmful to the economy and the environment.
Despite the challenges, Watkins said, “Would I change my life? Not for anything.”
— With additional reporting by Illinois Farmer Today’s Gene Lucht.