March 13--T.J. Menn, who grew up working on his uncle's farm outside Carthage, Ill., thought his fellow students at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government were getting a misguided view of U.S. farm policy. That concerned him, since he thinks these movers and shakers in Cambridge, Mass., might someday set that policy.
"I was frustrated by what I view as an oversimplification of agriculture policy," he said. "The agriculture bill was simplified to, 'We're paying farmers to grow nothing.' "
He decided to offer a different perspective.
Menn, a second-year student in public policy, organized a weeklong tour through the farmlands of western Illinois and Iowa for students at the elite graduate school. On Sunday night, 24 students, about half of them international students, will gather in Galesburg and begin what he has dubbed Farm Trek.
One of the first stops will be Menn's uncle's 500-acre farm outside Carthage, where they will taste life on a family farm.
"They'll have the chance to shoot guns, drive 4-wheelers, drive a tractor, see baby cows and chickens -- they're excited about that," Menn said. "They'll split some wood, maybe even bottle-feed a calf."
Over the week, the tour will include an Amish farm and lumber mill, a dairy farm, a grain farm, a large hog operation, a winery and a manufacturer of beekeeping supplies. Participants will attend a cattle auction and tour a research facility for genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. They will spend most nights with host families.
The tour proved a powerful draw. More then 100 students applied to go, far more than could be accommodated on the trip, which is sponsored in part by Monsanto, DuPont/Pioneer and the farm bureaus in Hancock and McDonough counties.
"I was curious about (the) American rural area since I was little," a Chinese participant wrote in his trip brochure bio. "I never thought I would have a real chance to go to (an) American village in person."
Several of those on the tour already have worked in government and agriculture.
It is crucial that this group understand agriculture in the Midwest, Menn said: "A lot of these people are going to graduate from the Kennedy School and they're going to go to D.C. They're going to be making and shaping public policy that's going to have a direct effect on a part of the country they've never even visited."
By the end of Farm Trek, participants will have made that visit, learned about Midwest agriculture and had the kind of fun one student anticipated in his bio:
"Farms and tractors ... that's about as cool as it gets for my kids and me!"
blbrotman@tribpub.com
