News & Updates

March 10, 2025 Working alongside his father and uncle on their family farm in Meredosia, Nick Werries gained an appreciation for nature at an early age. He described his fond memories of riding in the tractor and helping his uncle plant apple and peach trees. He said, “I helped quite a bit with getting equipment ready for the next season and generally just helping with whatever needs to be done. Usually during harvest and planting season was when I was out there the most.” In

March 3, 2025 The fourth annual Soil Health Week will be celebrated across Illinois on March 3-9, 2025, and AIM is excited to be hosting a virtual panel featuring our Level 3 Conservation Planners on March 4th f rom 11 am to 12 pm! Adams County Conservation Planner Andrew Parks, Scott County Conservation Planner Courtney Lercher, and Knox County Conservation Planner Tim Blackwell will share their experiences working with SWCD staff and producers in their districts to improve

February 28, 2025 As a Conservation Planner in the Will County field office, Wyatt Dozier has had the opportunity to work on everything f rom raised beds in a vacant lot in Chicago to grazing plans for livestock in Kankakee. Wyatt’s enthusiasm for conservation began at an early age, as he grew up in a home surrounded by several acres of restored native prairie and frequently visited his grandfather ’s farm. He said, “It instilled the importance of taking care of the land and

February 24, 2025 Although we have officially entered winter, some producers are still growing ample fresh vegetables inside high tunnels, for which NRCS offers funding through EQIP. There are several cold hardy crops that can survive in high tunnels(commonly referred to as hoop houses) over winter without any heating, including kale, cilantro, carrots, and turnips. If you are planning to harvest during the winter, it is important to start seeds a specif ic number of weeks be

February 19, 2025 Upon speaking with Courtney Lercher at the Scott County Soil and Water Conservation District, her environmental consciousness radiates along with her ambition to assist producers, and it comes as no surprise that she was one of the first Conservation Planners (CPs) to achieve Level 3 certification. Her interest in agriculture started in high school when she and her parents began raising chickens, ducks, and geese in their small town in Clinton County. Her fo

January 16, 2024 Be a pioneer with Illinois STAR – your participation counts. Complete a questionnaire at IllinoisSTAR.org and be a part of shaping the future of sustainable agriculture via cover crops and conservation practices. Use the confidential STAR tool to share your conservation practices. You will get a personalized Conservation Improvement Plan for your field, and contribute to conservation agriculture insights. Your voice matters and your example is invaluable. Dea

December 18, 2023 Steve Turner doesn’t put all his eggs in one basket. In fact, poultry is among the few things he and his sons don’t produce. They grow wheat, corn, soybeans, rye, popcorn, green beans, pumpkins, and alfalfa, and raise calves on 3,500 acres in Cass and Mason counties. Turner cites two major factors in the operation of Bell-Turner Family Farms, near Chandlerville. The first, for commodity crops, “is the diversification of risk and income” – thus the wide varie

December 18, 2023 Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, rejects the “get big or get out” approach to farming. Instead, he touts multiple revenue streams as the means for farmers to both increase their income and help spark the diversified agricultural economies needed to rejuvenate small towns. The USDA secretary made this case on two recent trips to Illinois. In September, he joined President Biden on a visit to a Kankakee farm to promote significant federal resour