McCormick Farms hosts U.S. Congress staffers

McCormick Farms in Ellis Grove hosted a group of staff members from U.S. Congress offices earlier this summer as part of a three-day tour through southern Illinois.
The offices of U.S. senators Tammy Duckworth, Dick Durbin and Pat Roberts (Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee chairman), and U.S. Representatives Mike Bost, Rodney Davis, Bill Foster, Darin LaHood, Adam Kinzinger, Bobby Rush and John Shimkus were in attendance.
The group visited McCormick Farms as part of a congressional staff tour hosted annually by GROWMARK, Inc. in partnership with the Illinois Corn Marketing Board and the Illinois Soybean Association Checkoff board.
McCormick Farms is operated by three generations of McCormicks - Paul, his son Jack, and his grandson, Jared. Jack McCormick is a director of the GROWMARK Board.
"They asked me questions about specific things I talked about, but basically they were there to learn," Jack said. "Some of them were farm kids and on the other side of it, we had guys from Chicago who didn't know the difference between a beef cow and a dairy cow."
While at the farm, tour participants learned more about the farm operation with a focus on conservation practices. The benefits of these practices were discussed along with the challenges of implementation and working through state and federal agencies.
In addition to visiting McCormick Farms, participants toured facilities throughout southern Illinois to learn about seed technology and trait development, livestock production, infrastructure and trade, and renewable fuels.
"The people I was talking to were actually the ones who write the laws," Jack said. "So by teaching them something about agriculture, it's bound to give us a heads up."
The McCormicks use soil conservation and no-till planting to help minimize nutrient and fertilizer runoff into waterways.
"We use earthen structures and put drainage pipes in front of them to take surface water and use it for irrigation," Jack McCormick said.
Jack noted he also talked about planting cover crops during winter that help preserve the nutrients in the soil.
"People don't know what we're doing unless we talk about it," he said.