When Irene Seals moved from the south side of Chicago to a small farm in Pembroke, Illinois, with her husband in 1982, she was less than enthused about it. The land was barren, she says, except for "a lot of junk" that had to be cleared before they could build a barn and house. Accustomed to the noise and the lights of the city, she also had trouble getting used to the eerie quietness of the farm.

Irene moved to the farm because her husband Frank used to live on a farm growing up, and he dreamed of raising horses. His dream came to pass, and it has become Irene's dream as well–Boots & Saddles RR Youth Center and Academy.

Frank has since passed away, but Irene continues to run the 15-acre farm just 15 miles east of Kankakee. In 2005, she received a SARE grant to expand the operation, which includes 30 horses along with pastured chickens, turkeys and rabbits. With the funding, she developed an aquaponics system, a method for growing plants and fish in a recirculation system in which the plants nourish the fish and the fish nourish the plants.

The system, which operates in a greenhouse, consists of three, 4- by 8-foot beds, tiered on top of each other, with plants grown in the top two beds and gravel filling the bottom bed. Meanwhile, the fish are stored in a 500-gallon water tank.

Every half hour, Seals says, water circulates through the system, moving from the fish tank to the three-tiered beds. It moves up from the bottom bed, filtering through the gravel and flowing over the plant beds. Then the water returns to the fish tank, and the cycle begins again.

The waste from the fish acts as a fertilizer to the plants, Seals explains, while the plants absorb certain nutrients, purifying the water before it flows back to the fish tank. The rocks in the bottom bed filter out any excess fertilizer. In the beds, Seals grows mostly herbs, such as basil, oregano and chives. She originally tried raising catfish in the fish tank but was unsuccessful. She says the catfish population may have been too large, so the system was unable to filter out the ammonia fast enough.

When Seals found a reliable tilapia source, she started out with 200 fingerlings. It takes a year for the fingerlings to reach full size, about a pound and a half. The system has worked well, she says. They lost only 50 fish in the first year, which is to be expected, and saw great results from the plants, which are grown pesticide-free and sold at farmer's markets.

The SARE grant covered the greenhouse construction, the beds, and the tanks. "Without it, I would not have been able to fulfill my dream," she says. Along with the three-tiered system, Seals has a smaller, three-barrel aquaponics system that can nurture about 25 to 30 fish. The system is comprised of three 55-gallon barrels, one containing the fish, another containing the plants, and the third containing the rocks. Seals primarily keeps catfish in the barrel system, although she rotates in tilapia.

While constructing the greenhouse for the system, the main problem they encountered was with heating. Due to their inexperience with greenhouses, she says they built the greenhouse two feet higher than it should have been. A lot of heat was wasted, and heating in the winter became costly. "It gets pretty chilly in the greenhouse during the winter," she says. So they are looking into ways to provide solar heat to supplement the corn-burning furnace.

B & SRR farm operates an extensive outreach program to kids, with a lot of them coming from Pembroke and Chicago to help on the farm. Most of the youth come for the summer program, which rewards work in the garden and greenhouse with horse riding–a major incentive for the kids. The most devoted youth even come on the weekends during the school year.

Today, Seals has grown fond of the country, and the peacefulness that once irked her is now a part of her life.

As she puts it, "Now it's hard to go back to the city, the noise, and the crowds. I love the country. I wouldn't go back to the city for anything."

- Jason Peterson

Illinois Sustainable Vegetable Farmer Named Finalist for National Sustainability Award

Henry Brockman, an Illinois farmer who values harmony with nature and community has won a national award, The Patrick Madden Award for Sustainable Agriculture in the North Central Region. Henry Brockman operates an intensive, multi-generational, highly-diverse and sustainable vegetable production in the Mackinaw River Valley of Woodford County.

This $1,000 award for farmers and ranchers who raise food or fiber in ways that are profitable, good for families and communities, and beneficial to the environment was presented by the USDA's North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NCR-SARE) program to Henry at the National SARE Conference on March 26 in Kansas City.

Brockman specializes in biodiversity–planting more than 600 varieties of more than 100 distinct vegetable types on his Illinois farm, Henry's Farm (www.henrysfarm.com). A total of 550 different items were in the 2007 seed order for Henry's Farm. His operation provides produce to families in the Bloomington-Peoria area with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and to families in the Chicago area with a stand at the Evanston Farmers Market.

NCR SARE Research and Education–Call for Preproposals

Look for more information coming in April 2008 on the NCR SARE website:
http://sare.org/ncrsare/resedu.htm.

Travel Scholarships Available

Scholarships are available for agricultural professionals wishing to attend conferences to further their knowledge of sustainable agriculture practices, to be applied to existing and new local programming.

Reimbursable expenses include lodging, registration, meals, airfare and mileage. Scholarship recipients will be expected to complete a survey immediately after the conference/event, and a second survey six to nine months after the event on how the information was used in their work.

For more information on travel scholarships:
North Central Region SARE
Professional Development Program
P.O. Box 410
Greenview, IL 62642-0410
(217)968-5512
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/smallfarm/sare/travel.html

Peoria Chapter of IDEA

From its inception in 2005, the Peoria Chapter of IDEA (Initiative for the Development of Entrepreneurs in Agriculture) has functioned as a partnership between public and private entities. The original planning committee was comprised of individuals from the Natural Resource Conservation Service, Prairie Rivers Resource Conservation and Development, Basil's Harvest, Kickapoo Valley Farm and University of Illinois Extension in Peoria County. Due to the diversity of thought and experiences, the Peoria Chapter of IDEA has been able to provide a variety of workshops and tours, all developed to address the concerns of those engaged in alternative agriculture.

Workshops held have addressed marketing plan development, business plan development, small farms, grant awareness and writing and developing a limited liability corporation. In addition to workshops, the Peoria Chapter has sponsored several tours, including four on-farm tours, a sustainable ag tour, and a bus tour to Chicago where participants attended the Chicago Green City Market, Frontera Grill and an ethnic grocery store tour. From these events, the Peoria Chapter of IDEA has learned that providing participants with an opportunity to network is one of the most beneficial aspects of workshops and tours.

The Peoria Chapter of IDEA has also brought together other entities to partner in locally grown food marketing. An example is "Market in the Park" which is a partnership between the City of Bartonville, Limestone Township and the Peoria Chapter of IDEA. During the 2006 and 2007 seasons, over 600 individuals have attended the Saturday morning Farmers' Market. In 2008, the Peoria Chapter of IDEA will be providing assistance in the development of two new Farmers' Markets.

The partners for the Limestone Township Raised Bed Garden project included the Kickapoo Council Girl Scouts, Limestone Township, Archer Daniels Midland, Good Earth Composting, the Peoria Chapter of IDEA and Peoria County Extension Master Gardeners. Limestone Township provided a 10x18 section of parking lot, adjacent to the Township building, and topsoil necessary to give 12 Girl Scouts the opportunity to "Make something out of nothing." The young ladies donated the proceeds from this garden to the local chapter of Plant-A-Row for the Hungry.

For more information, contact Roger Larson, (309)685-3140, ralarso1@uiuc.edu.

The Land Connection

The Land Connection (TLC) preserves farmland, trains farmers and supports sustainable farming through land conservation actions, education programs and farmer-farmland matching to help ensure every community in Illinois has access to local and organic food.

1227 Dodge Ave.,
Suite 200
Evanston, IL 60202
(847)570-0701

info@thelandconnection.org
www.thelandconnection.org

Illinois Value-Added Rural Development Center

The center conducts research and provides outreach to residents and communities in rural Illinois on agriculture and non-agriculture projects. Its purpose is to assist in creating value-adding ventures that benefit the economy, quality of life and diversification of communities.

Illinois Value Added Sustainable Development Center
Western Illinois University
508 Stipes Hall
1 University Circle
Macomb, IL 61455
(309)298-2237

iira@wiu.edu
www.value-added.org

2008 Illinois Sustainable Living and Wellness Expo
April 11 – 12
Location: Bloomington, IL at Illinois Wesleyan University Shirk Center
Visit: ecologyactioncenter.org/islwe

Stelle Earth Day Open House
May 4
Location: Stelle, IL
Visit: www.centerforsustainablecommunity.org/earthday08.htm

2008 Soil and Water Conservation Society Annual Conference
July 26 - 30
Location: Tuscon, AZ
Visit: www.swcs.org/en//conferences/2008_annual_conference

Additional events may be found on University of Illinois Extension's small farm website at: http://www.extension.uiuc.edu/smallfarm

2008 Sustainable Agriculture Tours

EDR Llamas
May 13
Location: East Peoria, Peoria County

Learn Great Foods
June 20
Location: Mt. Carroll, Carroll County

Lyons Fisheries
July 11
Location: Sandoval, Marion County

Cedar Valley Sustainable Farm CSA
July 22
Location: Ottawa, LaSalle County

Dixon Springs Agricultural Center, with Upper Midwest Organic Tree Fruit Growers
August 5
Location: Simpson, Johnson County

Iyabo Farms
September 8
Location: Hopkins Park, Kankakee County

Mill Creek Farm
October 3
Location: Quincy, Adams County

For more information on Sustainable Agriculture Tours, visit: http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/smallfarm/ag_tours.cfm.

Spring 2008 Illinois Small Farm News