(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag.

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

Why does some people just get involved, become leaders?

Well, we're gonna dive right into that with fourth generation farmer, Megan Dwyer.

How you're doing, Megan?

- Doing great.

- You're from Geneseo.

- That's right.

- Aren't they like the fighting fig leafs or something like, what are they?

- It's a maple leaf.

- It's a maple leaf.

- Come on, Mighty Maple Leaves.

- I always wondered like why a high school when they were looking for a mascot to inspire fear into the other team, one would go with the leaf.

- Well, I was a Charger, so I was a transplant into Geneseo.

So, I graduated from Orion.

- Oh.

- We were the Chargers so.

- The Orion Chargers.

Orion part of Rova now?

- No, it's not.

- Okay.

- It still holds its own.

- I don't even trying to, anyway.

We'll move on, 'cause I don't know where it's at.

So, were you from, did you grow up in Geneseo?

- Coal Valley.

- Coal Valley?

Okay.

- Just next door.

- And grew up on a farm?

- Yes.

- What kind?

- Corn, soy, alfalfa, beef cattle.

- So, kind of stereotypical Illinois farm?

Yeah.

- It is, yep.

Actually, just moved back two years ago to the same dead end road I grew up on.

- Oh really?

- Yeah.

- So, you back to your family's farm?

- Yes.

Yep.

- Which is a SEYS farm?

- It is.

- So, when you have a name like that everybody's like, "Well, how many acres," right?

Because they've, I don't know.

It like puts it subconsciously puts that question into your mind.

- That's if you can say it right the first time.

- Why?

- Most of it's SEYS or something else that's not even close to SEYS.

- Well, it's S-I-Z-E isn't it?

- Nope, it's S-E-Y-S. - Okay.

- Somebody's helping you out this morning, Rob.

- Thank you, Emily, for doing this phonetically.

Okay, that makes sense.

Okay.

So, you're moving back to actually, on the family farm?

- Yeah, it's a dead end road and so it's my dad's house and ours.

And so, I've got the four kids there and they ride the bikes and walk to Papa's house and can do all the cattle chores and be right there.

- Oh, that's fun.

- Yeah.

- Married to Todd.

Where'd you meet him?

- Yeah, a little interesting story.

His brother used to do all of our grain trucking.

And so, one fall I was home from college and he was no longer with the girlfriend he'd been with for a long time.

And I don't think his brother was overly happy with his work productivity.

So, called my dad and said, "Hey, hear your good looking helps home for the weekend."

I was running the auger cart and said, "I think you need to hook 'em up."

So, that was probably a November we went.

- That's a bold move to ask.

I'm thinking as a father, if someone says, "Hey, get your good looking daughter to hook up with my brother."

- Yeah.

- I'd probably say no.

- Well, I was dating somebody at the time and he apparently didn't seem to care about that either so.

Went on a date in January and got married a year and a half later and it's been 13 years.

- Okay.

Four kids?

- Four kids.

- My gosh, I don't know how you have time to breathe.

- It's insanity.

- Yeah.

- Organized chaos on the good days.

(Rob chuckling) - So, what school do they go to?

- Yep, they're at St. Malachy's in Geneseo.

- Okay.

All right.

You went to Iowa State.

- That's right.

- Couldn't get into anything better, huh?

- It's a top choice.

I set the trend.

There was nobody from the area going out there when I went.

And now everybody's there so.

- What did you wanna study?

- I started at large animal vet and then it was actually, an internship my freshman year on the agronomy side that showed me a whole nother side of the agronomy world.

And so, switched things up.

- That's a lot less biology, right?

- It is, yes.

Yeah, I actually, did a short stint for a semester and switched to dairy science just to eliminate some of the biology classes.

- Oh, really?

That's funny.

Well, let's jump into this.

You had a significant accident, that was two years ago.

- Two years ago.

- So, you would've been married, and did you have all four kids?

- All four kids, youngest was 18 months.

- Okay.

So well, tell me what happened.

- Yeah, it was a sunny morning, Monday morning in August, and had left, I had to make a couple work stops and then was taking some time off that day driving down a major highway, two-lane highway in Henry County, and there was a box truck in front of me, box truck took the ditch.

And there was another driver that came at me head on and head-on collision.

- So, the box truck veered, and as he's going off, I mean, did you notice this truck's going off and then notice that car's coming at you?

- So, cars have black boxes, which is kind of crazy.

And so, mine and that.

- Whoa.

Cars have, what do you mean?

- They do.

So, they don't record sound, but they record if seat belts are functioning correctly, if you move a steering wheel, hit the brakes, touched the accelerator, all types of things.

So, it's constantly recording.

- My car does that?

- So, constantly recording and it only keeps it for about 15 seconds before an impact and five seconds after an impact.

- Okay.

- And so, my car said that 3/10 of a second before impact, I turned the steering wheel.

So, to me that was how fast everything happened.

So, I was cruising about 60, I'm assuming the other, well, the other driver was.

He clocked it about 56 is what his.

- The truck?

- No, the car that hit me.

- Oh, the the car that hit you.

Okay.

- So, I mean, blink of an eye.

- Why, what did he came over to your lane?

- Yeah.

Well, that's a great question.

So, his black box said that he never turned the steering wheel, never hit the brakes, nothing.

Was just on a straight course.

You know, he didn't survive the accident.

There was no drugs, no alcohol.

They never found a cell phone.

There's a lot of speculation on what was going through his mind that day.

- He did it on purpose?

- Potentially.

- Do you know, what's scary is I've interviewed, I don't know how many people I've interviewed, it's probably over three that have had this happen to them.

You know, people wanted a way out and they've affected other people's lives.

- Yeah.

- I think if that happened to me, I don't know, I would just be mad all the time.

- I don't know.

It's like the things that make me mad about the accident, it's interesting, you know?

There was some family that reached out afterwards and apologized for the inconvenience that was caused to me and my family.

- Oh.

- That probably makes me more mad than anything, this inconvenience.

You know, I also think about who was at play that day.

So, the box truck driver, it was a local meat packing company.

The driver felt terrible.

He wishes he would've just hit the guy.

I don't, I mean, cruising 60 miles an hour, I probably would've ran right into his bumper.

It would've went through the windshield of my Explorer.

Probably not a good day.

You know, the car behind me was a grandma with kids going to the zoo that day.

That wouldn't have been a good day.

So, you know, very fortunate.

And then just how things played out.

So, probably a terrible habit.

I was sitting on my left leg driving, you know?

- Oh, like this.

- Sitting like this.

- Good Lord, I couldn't do that, if you paid me a million bucks.

- And the way the car pretty much crumpled in, the only spot left in the front dash area was room for my right leg.

So, I also wonder, had I been driving like a normal person, what that would've looked like.

And there were just so many things about that day that I don't know, I wonder more why things weren't worse than why they happened.

- Okay.

How bad were you hurt?

- Yeah.

Broken bones from head to toe.

So, collarbone, ribs, shattered pelvis, wrist, my toe, all sorts of things.

Spent five days in a level one trauma center, was airlifted out, collapsed lungs, you know, the whole gamut.

I was fortunate, I think for my kids especially.

Externally, you couldn't really tell a whole lot, which was probably good.

My kids didn't see, you know, mom looking, you know, unrecognizable, but inside was a hot mess.

- Were you ever afraid that you weren't gonna make it?

- Not until I got to the hospital.

It was just, you know, I couldn't breathe and I thought I was having a panic attack, which it turned out to be, you know, collapsed lungs and a partially collapsed second lung.

- Probably were having a panic attack too as well.

- And then, you know, just the concern about, you know, internal bleeding.

You think about all the things, you know, and what can happen.

But I don't know, I just, I never like, you know, I never saw the light.

I never was overwhelmed that I was going to die, but was very aware of the severity of the situation.

- Okay.

How long were you, I don't know.

- Yeah.

- Before you were healed?

- Yeah.

So, accident happened August 1st.

I wasn't clear to drive again until the end of December after final surgeries.

And so, that after the first round of surgeries and then had two more surgeries into really the next full year into the following August.

- I can't imagine what kind of turmoil that sets.

I mean, you guys got a big family.

- Yeah.

- That resets everything.

I mean, in a way it shows you your priorities, but man, that must have been chaos.

- It was, although morbid or not, I heard a speaker years ago, and I'm that type A organized personality that said that they had a folder said, you know, Jolene's dead on the folder.

So, I've had a folder that says Megan's dead on it.

- Before this?

- Oh, before this.

So, account number.

- Learning a lot about you, Megan.

(Megan and Rob laughing) - And my husband jokes.

So, we had recently moved into a house, which again was another one of those, you know, blessings in disguise.

The house that we were living in, there's no way I could have gone home.

I had what they called a platform walker, so I could only have weight through my right elbow.

No weight on my left leg.

So, using an elbow, left arm, right leg, and a walker.

And so, the house that we'd moved into was much more, you know, almost handicap accessible, if you will.

But my husband joked that I couldn't have died, because he didn't know where the folder was at the time.

(Megan and Rob laughing) - Kind of throws a wrench into your plan, doesn't it?

Oh, I couldn't imagine driving after that.

- It was rough for a while, but it wasn't the first time I'd been in an accident on that highway.

Five years prior to that, I was driving the opposite direction on the highway, pregnant with our third child, had the other two in the car, and there was a car turning in front of us.

So, we slowed down, driver behind us was on her phone, never looked up, rear ended us, and totaled a brand new vehicle that we were in.

So, I now don't think it's going to be if, but when this happens again.

- Just sitting down having a glass of wine thinking life would be better, if people would stop fricking hitting me.

- Oh, idiots, and I'm more worried, you know, we think about, so my oldest, he'll be 12 in December, runs the grain cart.

He's all in on the farm.

I mean, tools around four wheelers, rangers, everything.

And I told my husband, you know, I'm not worried about him, but I am terrified.

There's no way I am letting this kid take a tractor down the road or following a ranger.

And it's not that I'm worried about him, but the idiots on the road.

And I just couldn't imagine, if what that would look like.

- Honestly, you've earned that right.

Whether it's, you know, rational or not.

So, I think your husband just has to give you that one.

- No.

- All right, let's switch gears.

I'm glad you're okay.

- Thank you.

- You are the director of conservation and nutrient stewardship at Illinois Corn Growers, right?

- That's right.

- I have no idea what that means.

- Most people don't.

So, short story, I cover everything from water quality, conservation, sustainability on behalf of all the Illinois corn farmers across the state.

So, checkoff organization.

So, every bushel of corn that's sold in the state, 7/8 of a cent goes into the checkoff.

- You're welcome.

- Thank you.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- The checkoff though cannot lobby, so we rely on our members as well.

So, Illinois Corn Growers Association is the second half of Illinois Corn.

But really what I do is go and advocate on the policy and regulatory side.

Thinking things like Endangered Species Acts, crop insurance.

There's a lot of talk around this 45Z tax credit for ethanol coming down the road.

So, really getting involved in those issues.

And then at the state, the nutrient loss reduction strategy, which Illinois farmers are going to blow past, not in a good way here in 2025.

And so, making sure that we don't have undue burdens on regulatory sides coming from that.

- You're trying to get corn growers to self police themselves, basically.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

How's that working?

- It's tough, you know?

It's not you, it's the neighbor.

The neighbor's that doing the problem.

- That's a jerk.

You know him?

- That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know?

- You know, a lot of ways that we can do this, you know, tillage, the government programs, buffer strips, stuff like that.

Is there something more than another that would help this nutrient loss?

- Yeah, and so, it's complicated too, because the more we learn about this, so the NLRS, Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, actually started in Illinois a decade ago.

And so, this was a campaign by the USEPA to help reduce the hypoxic zone in the Gulf.

We're learning that we're maybe, you know, not entirely sure where all of this is coming from.

So, stream bank erosion, for instance, on phosphorus is a big contributor that isn't getting enough credit, if you will, in some of this.

Now, what can be done?

- That's not our fault.

- It's not.

- Yeah, just so you know.

- But there are things that we can do and we know, so Illinois, 22 million acres of row crop land, we're sitting at about a million acres of cover crops.

So, there's a lot of work that can be done and improvement to be made.

And not that cover crops work for everyone or a good fit, but you mentioned tillage, we can go to reduce tillage, strip till, no till.

Changing with nitrogen, you know, really being smart with our nitrogen.

You know, rates, timings, all of those things play into this.

- As soon as I get my soybeans off, I put nitrogen on.

Yeah.

- When the soils are like 70 degrees.

- Well, it works in better, like if it's 80, 90 degrees, yeah.

And then, you know, you can kind of get that, that high from all the anhydrous getting off.

(Megan and Rob laughing) It is, you know, it's easy to point to your neighbor that's doing all the bad things, but sometimes farmers need to look within thy selves.

- That's right.

And I, you know, I think about the last two years in central Illinois, we've had a lot of issues with wind erosion and some interstates being shut down and major accidents, because of the wind.

You know, we need to be looking at what can we do there?

What's going on?

And trying to figure out some of these complex situations.

And you mentioned programs, you know, that's a challenge too.

Illinois, our state, has not really gotten behind agriculture like it should.

Federally, we don't see as many dollars coming into the state as some of our neighboring states.

So, it's not a simple solution and there's no one-size-fits-all answer.

- When I first started farming, I wanted to be different, right?

You want to try different stuff, you know, prove yourself.

We had a moldboard plow and we had an 80 that's just like kind of mucky in that.

I'm like, I told dad, I'm like, "I'm gonna plow."

I didn't even know how to plow.

I had to look on YouTube how to plow.

So, I plowed that thing and you know, it was great or whatever.

And I remember driving home that spring and it had been dry and it looked like a fire, and I was like 20 miles away.

And as I got closer, I realized that's the dust from my farm, the one farm.

So, I kind of self-taught myself that way.

Not to say that there's not cases where plows are there,- - Yeah.

- but it probably would've been better, if somebody else taught me that lesson.

Like you.

(Megan and Rob laughing) But that's what happened with like the interstates, right?

Those accidents.

- Yeah.

There's still, I mean, and the other thing today, you talk about going on YouTube to learn something.

There's just as much on social media showing those bad actors.

You know, the one this last spring, we saw a lot of pictures of planters in fields next to the interstate and being pinned on these particular people.

We've seen a lot of social media on applications of nutrients and crop protection agents and how terrible they are.

And so, you gotta remember, people are always watching, - I know neighbors.

Post application coverage endorsement.

What is that?

PACE.

- Yeah, PACE.

PACE is an interesting crop insurance tool.

It was the first product that actually, links a conservation practice or a cropping practice to crop insurance.

So, that is for people that are interested in split applying their nitrogen.

So, Illinois Corn, we send out a policy survey every year.

One of the questions talks about why you're not split applying more nitrogen?

And one of the main reasons we get back year over year is that the risk of just not getting it on.

- I know I feel that way.

I'm worried about it.

I've been caught in that situation.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And you know, the data, the information would be on our side saying, in almost every year a window exists to be able to make that happen.

And so, we've looked at how can we cover that risk in a way that makes sense.

So, instead of putting on a few extra units, in case you lose some by putting it on at the wrong time, let's look at crop insurance.

And so, this endorsement stacks onto your existing base policy.

So, your RP, whatever you've got, and you define, you know, if you're gonna, you know, put 20% on in season or 70% on in season and it works similar to think of a prevent plan or hail, whether the event happened or not.

So, there's nothing to do with yield.

So, even if you don't get that application made and you don't see a yield loss, you can still see an indemnity payment come from that.

- Okay, I had not heard of that before.

It's as we're taping, it's election day.

- It is election day.

- Did you vote?

- I sure did.

- Who'd you vote for?

- It's a loaded question.

I will tell you I was a split ticket vote this year.

- A split ticket vote.

- Now, you can decide if that's top of the ticket or some of the local stuff, but it was a split ticket.

- I wrote in your name.

- Great.

- Yeah.

- I'll take that.

- I didn't tell you what office.

(Megan and Rob laughing) - As long I wasn't the coroner.

- Well, you said it, it got you to thinking, right, about like, you know, getting involved.

It seems like there are, you know, certain people, certain families that are doing everything, you know, even the person that's picking up the chairs after the church picnic, stuff like that.

What are your thoughts on all that?

- Yeah, you know, I think some of this, we think about nature versus nurture and I see it with my four kids every day.

And they're all being raised in the same environment, pretty same set of rules, and they are all so different.

And I think it's taking a look at, you know, what they inherently have that natural passion, direction they're being steered towards and really nurture that, and give them going.

And I think about, you know, that in my own life, so growing up I had three other siblings, two boys, two girls.

There was never a thought or a difference that, because I was a girl, I couldn't be doing these things.

You know, I wanted to be out on the farm.

I wanted to have a shovel in my hand scraping barns.

You know, I bought sows in high school to farrow, to keep doing that.

- You seem like you're not low on energy.

- Well, you should meet my father.

(Megan and Rob laughing) - Oh, speaking of which.

What do we got here?

- Yeah, so just thinking through things, and you know, trying to think about agriculture and myself and where I'm at today, you know, I really think about my grandfather, my dad's dad.

So, he was born in 1911 and the stories he could tell, you know?

He would go out.

We think hard work today.

You know, we can't get kids to come out and bale small square bales of hay.

- [Rob] No.

- My grandfather would go out with horses and plow for 50 cents a day.

There was a time when, you know, the road commissioner would give them a quarter or no, that's too much.

Whatever it was for groundhog ears.

- A plug nickel.

- You know?

And to try and help with, you know, destroying the roads.

And so, just thinking about the history there.

- Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I interrupted you for groundhogs?

- Ears.

You brought in the ears to prove that you'd killed them.

- Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong time.

Yes, and this is your.

- Yeah, so this is my, this is, you know, circa early eighties.

That would be my and my dad.

They're putting ear corn in the crib, crib that we still have today.

And you know, the hat's there.

My dad will still wear this on occasion.

We joke about that this thing has probably held everything.

Grain samples, liquids, who knows?

- They look like they're about ready to go drink a Bapst.

- Probably.

They very much or smoke a cigar.

- That's pretty cool though.

The old ear corn where, you know, they would put it in the corn crib and then at a later date when it dried out, they'd have to, it was a whole process.

- It was - Honestly, I kind of missed that whole thing.

Not that I wanna do it again, because the whole working thing.

- Working and the rats, there's a lot of rats.

- And snakes.

- Yeah, snakes.

- Yeah, rats and snakes.

- Yeah.

- What do we got here?

- Just my, you know, it's my Stanley knockoff.

It's my swig.

- Your swig.

- Yeah.

- And you got all the.

- It's a little bit of everything.

- A lot of Advocate.

- Oh, swag.

- Yeah.

Advocate.

- That's right.

That's you.

It's all because of you.

- No, I am not the one that made this word up.

But that's Advocate with ag.

- Correct.

- Clever I guess.

Girl, pray about it.

- That's right.

- Do you make that up?

- No, but I should have.

- What's in here?

- Well, don't, it's election day, remember it's a rough day.

It's just water.

It's okay.

(Megan and Rob laughing) - That's some of some kind of water.

Yeah.

Yeah, we can wash that for you now.

That's okay.

I can put that back.

- Yeah.

- We had one of these too.

This was kind of a farm thing.

I don't know what it was, but ours had like a, I don't know, a Case IH or something on there, but yeah, they used to wear that before the ball caps I guess.

- Yeah.

We can bring that back.

- Or not, they aren't comfortable, or they don't breathe.

So, getting back to your point, the nature versus nurture, nurture versus nature, right?

Do you feel like, you know, you need to impress that on your kids, the next generation?

- Somewhat.

You know, like I said, whether they wanna get into agriculture or farm or not, that's gonna be up to them.

But I hope that they can see the importance of being able to tell that story and share it.

So, I think about, you know, I took baby piglets into kindergarten.

My dad has been on the township board since I was a little kid.

And I used to love going to township meetings.

Don't ask me why?

Boring.

- I would have no idea why.

- But I've seen then now in my adult career, the importance of making sure that agriculture's at the table.

So, whether I'm working with state officials or, you know, a few weeks ago I had a meeting with Treasury right next to the White House.

And the people even at top level USDA that have no direct connection to agriculture and production agriculture that are making a lot of big decisions on our behalf.

It is so important to have people that understand the ramifications of these decisions.

And so, I hope my kids see that and feel inspired to a part of that.

- I think that's just the key.

I don't even know, if it's something you have to teach just by doing it.

Like I said, if you see your parents, you do the dad thing where like you see how many chairs you can pick up, 'cause you gotta impress.

I don't know, whoever, the pastor, I think Illinois Corn, I think Illinois farmers are lucky to have someone like you.

- Well, thank you.

- Because in a job like you do, you gotta have high energy, you gotta have intelligence, which obviously, you have both, but you have to have an understanding.

If you went and talked to farmers and said, "Hey, you know, you guys need to do better about keeping your nutrients on your farm," we'd be like, "Why don't you leave the door that you just came in?"

I mean, you have an understanding of how to actually talk to 'em and understanding of how if we don't do this stuff, it could be worse.

- That's just it.

And I think, you know, not that we wanna live under a rock, but we get so comfortable with what we're doing on our own farms and what's happening in our neighborhoods, it's hard to think about the threats that actually exist.

I mean, how many people know that there was a bill introduced in Illinois last year to ban the use of all glyphosates, all the Roundup in the state, everywhere.

And what that would look like, not just from an ag perspective, but homeowners, lawn care, all of that and all of these things that are constantly showing up and coming at the door to make it harder to farm and do the job that we do.

There's gotta be people that are willing to stand up and can understand and speak to that.

- If people wanna find you, social media, internet, where do they go?

- Yeah, you can find me on, it'll always be Twitter, but X at Farmin88.

You can also reach out to me at Illinois Corn mdwyer@ilcorn.org.

- Megan Dwyer from Geneseo.

Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us today.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

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