WATCH CORN AND PIGS GROW WITH US: OUTREACH TO URBAN MOMS

Lindsay Mitchell

Apr 09, 2013  |  Today's News

Urban moms who are interested in how their food is grown and who are making a majority of grocery store purchasing decisions will be able to follow along with hog farmer Jen Sturtevant and corn farmer Donna Jeschke as they raise a litter of piglets and an acre of corn during the summer, 2013.

Together with the other Illinois commodity groups and Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Corn discovered in our research that moms listen to other moms and see them as experts with shared values and beliefs.  For this reason, Jen and Donna (a past ICMB Director) have been selected to share the experience of growing corn and livestock with curious non-farm women.

The litter of pigs and acre of corn will be “grown” on www.watchusgrow.org so that moms and women from all over the country can see for themselves exactly what decisions are made and why.  There is even an RSS feed and a “subscribe” feature so that when updates are made, they can be delivered straight to your phone or reader device.

This project is part of the Illinois Farm Families overall outreach program and an attempt to let non-farmers know that we are excited to be transparent and open about what we do on the farm so that they can understand how farmers are growing their food with care.

You can learn more about this Illinois corn check-off funded project at http://www.watchusgrow.org/topics/acre-pen.