Members of the agriculture community seem to experience two scenarios. Either they are on the receiving end of questions like, “What’s a CAFO?” (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) “Why can’t your livestock roam freely?” “Why do you need to apply chemicals to a crop?” “What does crop rotation mean?” “What is community supported agriculture?” Or, they wish that people would ask more questions and become more acquainted with the food chain.
Over 80,000 people are employed in an agriculture-related career in South Dakota. (https://sdda.sd.gov/education-outreach/agriculture-industry/ ) This includes row crop producers, livestock operations, and niche growers, as well as personnel in ag support professions. Everyone eats. Residents who don’t grow food likely drive by fields and pastures regularly. But, do all consumers understand the food supply chain?
Resources and opportunities abound for consumers looking to educate themselves. Families Feeding Families—Agvocacy is a network of agriculture professionals in the Yankton area that formed to help connect neighbors with folks growing food.
What began as a meeting around farmer Zane Williams’ kitchen table has expanded to an active group offering outreach and education in southeast South Dakota. Williams lives on his family farm, homesteaded 125 years ago by his great-great uncle. He says that agriculture has changed dramatically, even in the last ten years. “We're trying to educate the people that we don't have the masses of young people like we did in the 1940s and 50s coming into agriculture,” says Williams. “And we actually can't do all the labor the same way we did in those days. We're trying to educate people that things are changing in agriculture very rapidly. A lot of people don't like change. It does change the landscapes a little bit.”
Tara Pirak owns Valley Ag Supply out of Gayville. On the support side of agriculture, Pirak jumped at the invitation to that initial discussion with Williams and Jim Petrik, a local hog producer. “We started about January of 2019 and there was a couple of farmers who are just honestly fed up with people being so anti-agriculture and they wanted to know if I wanted to be involve,” says Pirak. “Agriculture is a pretty big part of my bottom line. It's the only thing I do. So it was important for me to stand up for, not because I have any livestock or anything like that, but I totally believe in what those guys and women do.”
Education is a significant element in the mission of Families Feeding Families, including petting zoos for kids, farm forums, billboards and printed informational items. In 2019 the organization held a fundraising dinner to generate financial resources. “It was just really tremendously successful for an organization that started at somebody's kitchen table in January,” says Pirak. “Four months later in April there were nearly 500 people for supper. All of those supporting agriculture, throwing money into a hat to say “Yes, I don't know what to do, but let's pool our money.”
A second annual fundraiser would have occurred in 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 virus. Pirak, Williams and the managing board for the organization decided that an outreach effort would be the thing to do. “So we had originally said we wanted to teach and that's what the money was going to go for it,” says Pirak. “Well, who would have expected a pandemic? We just saw this opportunity to say, ‘I don't know what we can do. Maybe nobody wants to hear about agriculture right now and be taught, right?”
“When this whole COVID-19 thing evolved, we could see the writing on the wall,” says Pirak. “A lot of people would be unfortunately losing their jobs. We just thought it was maybe the right thing to do, to help some of the local less fortunate people. We've been getting beef, it's a good protein source and iron. We just wanted to help.”
Yankton’s Contact Center has stopped taking donations of food, electing to ask for financial donations instead. Hy-Vee in Yankton has been the supplier that sells cased items to the center’s food pantry. This significantly reduces contact and risk for transferring the COVID virus. Families Feeding Families donated $1000 over the course of four weeks. Each visit the group used those funds to purchase a case of beef from Hy-Vee and deliver it to the Contact Center, where it went directly into the freezer.
Jennifer Adamson, Director of the Yankton Contact Center, said that the contribution will help folks in Yankton and the surrounding area. “We say that we're Yankton County, but we do help those in surrounding counties. We're right on the border of Nebraska and so many individuals from Nebraska come here to work, they wouldn't be to get to a food pantry in their town or close to them. Plus area churches and schools over in the Crofton and Hartington area are good donors to the pantry. We don't want to turn anybody away. It's food. Everybody needs food.”
Typically the Contact Center serves 150 to 190 families a month. Now the service is mainly drive-up. People call with their request for food, Adamson and staff fill the order and place it on a table outside and watch for the patron to pick up the bag. “We've seen a lot of new individuals needing food, that either aren’t working or their hours have been cut and they're not on any food stamp program or anything like that,” says Adamson. “So we have seen quite a few new people. We've also talked a lot on the phone to people that are scared to death. You know, none of us have ever seen this kind of a situation before.”
Adamson, her staff, Families Feeding Families and a number of other people and organizations want to help offer some reassurance. “I didn't do it to have my picture taken,” says Pirak. “I truly thought ‘this is something that needs to be done and we're blessedly in a situation that this organization has some money and that we can help others. I bet we weren't there for five minutes and they said ‘thanks a whole bunch’ and we just donated our stuff and we were on our way.”
Adamson says help is a phone call away. “No one needs to be food insecure right now.”
If you live in the Yankton area, contact the Yankton Contact Center at 605-260-4400, extension 2.
Yankton Contact Center Website.
Yankton Contact Center Facebook Page
As for Families Feeding Families co-founders Zane Williams, Jim Petrik and Tara Pirak, they’ll keep doing what they do – advocating for those in agriculture and helping their neighbors out. “I've known people that have had to depend on the Contact Center in different phases in their lives,” says Williams. “ I have a little bit of a soft spot. They do amazing work down there. Livestock producers, we have tendency to have a freezer stock full of meat. We can take care of ourselves and those people, unfortunately can't due to different circumstances that they've had in their lives. And so, we hope that they remember that farmers are a good thing and that we will continue to help those that need it. And I'm proud to be a part of this Family Feeding Families where we've kind of made that mission to educate. And I feel this is just a small part of that education.”
For more information about Families Feeding Families or visit their Facebook page.