FFA visits hit home for Meier

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Charlie Meier is quick to point out that had it not been for his involvement with FFA and 4-H as a youngster, he would not be a state representative.

Meier, R-Okawville, continues to pay it forward with his support of his high school alma mater in Okawville and its FFA chapter.

“I love Illinois Agriculture Legislative Day in Springfield. I love seeing all the FFA and 4-H kids. Without those two organizations, I wouldn’t be a state rep,” he said.

“I have no college education. I had a herd of dairy cows that I wanted to milk. In my senior year of high school, I had band, P.E. and ag in the morning and I was on the tractor by 11:30 every day growing up and somehow I’ve ended up a state rep.”

The 56th annual ag legislative day March 24 drew nearly 50 diverse agricultural organizations and about 600 FFA members and their advisers together to meet with lawmakers.

FFA members were tasked with delivering boxed lunches and commodity baskets to each legislator and meeting with lawmakers representing their districts. The baskets were filled with Illinois-produced products to remind lawmakers of agriculture’s diversity.

Meier, one of just a handful of legislators with ag backgrounds, met with numerous students and farm groups throughout the day, but when the Okawville FFA steps into his office, it’s that much more special because that’s where he got his start.

He greets his visitors with a bottle of Ski soft drinks, a product that’s made in his district.

“We will go through five to six cases of Ski soda today because everybody who comes to Rep. Meier’s office gets a bottle. I love having them come in and talk with them,” he said.

“Today gives me a chance to meet with a lot of these kids. I do a lot of different benefits for 4-H and FFA throughout the district, but it’s great to have them here in Springfield.”

“Ag legislative day each year at the state capitol provides a chance for FFA members to learn a little bit about state government and how things work, but also to thank our state officials for their support of ag education and FFA,” said Joshua Berg, Okawville High School agriculture teacher and FFA adviser.

“This is the first time I’ve been to ag day. It’s been really fun. I learned new stuff. I got to see Charlie. It’s always a fun time coming up to Springfield,” said Abigail Brennflick, Okawville FFA senior.

“I’m just glad to be here and meet everybody. We got to see the governor and hear everybody talk this morning.”

Chapter Support

Okawville’s FFA alumni holds a dinner and auction every two years that’s a major source of funding for the program and Meier is among those volunteering.

“It helps to provide jackets for our members, transportation, any new equipment and technology that we need. Charlie’s a big part of that because he is kind of the one who helps and organizes the pork chop dinner, and then we also have a silent and live auction along with that. We raise about $44,000, so it’s a big big help,” Berg said.

Agriculture Diversity

The Illinois FFA Foundation hosted an event the evening prior to ag legislative day, and Meier noted the diverse careers the students were pursing, ranging from law degrees to grain marketing.

“Ag Legislative Day is about our future. Agriculture is our state’s largest industry and ag is so broad,” he said.

“My neighbor’s son runs a PGA golf course where one of the tournaments is held every year. He got into that because of his ag background and has ended up with a job like that. It was ag that got him that.

“A lot of people think ag is just corn and soybeans, but in my district we’re the largest wheat-producing county in the state. We’re probably about third in dairy production. We have The Maschhoffs pork right by us, the third largest in the country and I think the fifth largest in the world. So, there’s a lot of livestock.

“Ag is everything. It’s that small family farm with 20 or 40 acres that’s raising specialty crops, raising chickens and processing them themselves. And we have a great need as we move forward and we need more processing plants for poultry, rabbits, sheep, goats. There’s money to be made and a small farm can make a living off of it.

“I haven’t always been a very big fan of solar, not hardly a fan of solar at all as far as putting in more solar goes, but the panels can be put in higher so we can have the herds of sheep underneath them and get some benefit from it.”

Illinois also has a strong wine industry and a bill is currently being considered to create a checkoff.

“The state of Illinois sometimes gives Illinois wineries money to use for promotions, and sometimes they don’t. They need to checkoff just like we’ve done with the wheat, corn and soybeans. They’re willing to do it, and we have that bill moving now,” Meier said.

“Agriculture is also all of us working together, working to help food banks, take our extra crop there if we can. I’ve got a big garden, and the sweet potatoes and tomatoes goes to a lot of different places over the year.”

Centennial Farm

Meier is among the few legislators who are also farmers, and his family’s agriculture background can be traced back to before the Revolutionary War.

He lives on the family’s centennial farm that was purchased by his family in 1905. The house was built in 1907.

“My grandma pulled all the logs with a team of mules for that house to be built,” Meier said. “If you go back through my mom’s side, our family has been in America since before the Revolutionary War.

“That farm that was bought before the Revolutionary War is still in the family bloodline. It’s like a 13th cousin that owns it now.”

A 2009 State of Illinois Conservation Farm Family of the Year honoree, Meier strongly believes in protecting the family farm both from a conservation standpoint and with legislative policies.

The farm has a corn, soybeans, wheat, double-crop soybeans and back to corn rotation. He also raises some clover into wheat for cattle.

“I custom feed Holstein steers for a friend, and I feed out about 40 feeders myself and sell a lot of quarters and halves,” he said.

Meier’s farm is part of the Kaskaskia River Watershed and includes about nine acres of wetlands and prairie grass.

“It’s one of the premier sites of its kind that have been established. Other people come to see how that’s been set up and how to do it. We can micromanage it, drain one pond or the other pond, or drain water from one to the other back. We just burned the prairie grass off this past weekend,” he said.

“We’ve reestablished a natural area. It’s about keeping our environment. The family farm is not an asset. The family farm is a member of the family. It has been there for our family for generations, and our family needs to be there for it for generations to make sure that it continues.

“That’s why we have to work so hard on this inheritance tax because the value of land has escalated and, as I often say, we won’t sell grandma and we shouldn’t have to sell the farm just because somebody dies.”