Organic for more than 40 years

RIDOTT, Ill. — The shift to organic farming at JKB Farms started in the 1970s. When an application of herbicides left more weeds behind in the field than it killed, Junior Hunziker decided he could do better with no chemicals at all. What began as a money-saving initiative soon brought other benefits to the farm as well.

Today, Junior and his wife, Judy, own and operate the farm with their children,  Joel and Kevin Hunziker and Krista Liddell; Kevin’s daughter and son-in-law, Hannah and Robby Lindquist, and their son, Benson; and Joel’s son, Gavin. The family milks 120 cows near Ridott and farms 720 acres, with 200 acres devoted to grazing.

Certified organic since the early 1980s, the organic way of farming is all that cousins Hannah and Gavin have ever known.

“We’re probably lucky because I’d say the hard part of organic is the transition period, and we were fortunate not to have to deal with any of that,” Gavin said. “In college, I interned at the local co-op, and it was such a different world than what I grew up with.”

Gavin returned to the farm full time a year ago after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Hannah works part time on the farm while also working part time as a nurse. Robby has been on the farm for three years and also sells seed and fertilizer.

Robby said being organic gave Hannah and him the chance to step into the operation at its current size.

“If the farm were conventional, I don’t think we would have that opportunity without growing a lot,” he said.

Hannah and Gavin are the fourth generation on the farm that has been in their family since 1965.

Cows are milked twice a day in the farm’s double-8 herringbone parlor. The herd includes Holsteins, Linebacks, Brown Swiss, Jerseys and Fleckvieh crosses.

JKB Farms shipped its milk to Torkelson Cheese Co. in Lena before becoming the first farm in Illinois to ship milk to Organic Valley Cooperative in 1996, Joel said.

Cows were milked in a barn with 101 stanchions before the Hunzikers built a parlor in 2007. The stanchion barn then became the holding area. Cows are housed in a freestall barn built at the same time as the parlor. Sand-bedded flex freestalls replaced the barn’s loose housing pen pack around 2018.

The Hunzikers utilize 11 paddocks that are split in half within their rotational grazing system. Cows are moved to a new paddock every 24 hours.

“Last year, we implemented a summer annual cocktail grazing mix for the dog days of summer, and we’re probably going to do something like that again this year,” Robby said.

The Hunzikers grow orchard grass, fescue, rye grass, clover and more. Cows are pastured from May to November.

“We started 30 days early this year because it was so warm,” Robby said.

Growing a good crop of organic corn was one of the family’s early challenges in organic farming.

“I remember some fields that were pretty bad,” Joel said. “They didn’t have many bushels at all on them because they were so weedy, but we lived and learned.”

In the barn, few changes were needed when switching to organic as the family never used many antibiotics on their animals, Joel said.

“We never had much trouble, and we didn’t push the cows that hard,” he said. “We were picking corn and grinding ear corn that we felt was healthier for the cows and also feeding them a lot of hay.”

Coming from a conventional farming background, Robby said he immediately saw benefits on the crop side.

“The quality and yield on our crops are much better than expected, and I attest that to soil health and not having all the pesticides,” he said. “Also, I think cow longevity here is quite a bit longer than in a conventional herd. Our cows average 4-6 lactations.”

Stopping problems before they start is key to their success.

“Being organic, we’re a lot more focused on prevention,” Hannah said.

Examples of preventative health measures include putting natural dewormer in the ration for cows on pasture and using Uddermint cream in the parlor. The Hunzikers use natural remedies like essential oils and garlic tinctures to cure ailments in their cattle. Crushed-up black walnuts are an ingredient in a couple of worming products they use. Fly control is accomplished with garlic salt and Fly Predators.

The family began using the smaXtec cow monitoring bolus system last October, which sends an alert if mastitis is suspected.

“The boluses have been a game changer, providing early detection before we can even visually pick up on if a cow is sick,” Hannah said.

The system provides various notifications for ketosis, mastitis, milk fever, calving, etc. Gavin said the biggest advantage of the technology is that it has allowed them to start breeding cows via A.I. Up until last December, they were bred by a bull.

Selling organic beef is another revenue stream for the Hunziker family, which they offer direct to the consumer in quarters, halves and wholes. Additionally, an all-natural grocery store in Loves Park buys beef to sell in its store.

All heifers are bred to Angus, as are the lowest-producing cows. The resulting calves are raised until market age. The family’s beef business is growing, particularly in the last couple of years.

“It’s a way to diversify and support us coming back to the farm,” Hannah said. “We don’t have any trouble getting rid of beef and typically sell out.”

The family is talking about installing robots in the future. Hannah said there is a lot of homework to do before making that investment, especially with operating a grass-based grazing system.

“Balancing pasture time versus robot time and figuring out how cows are going to flow from a pasture-based system is kind of an obstacle,” Gavin said. “But there are guys who’ve done it, so we feel confident we can do it.”

From herd monitoring to GPS in tractors, the youngest generation said their interest in technology is a steppingstone to the future.

“We are interested in any technology that can help us improve and be more efficient,” Robby said.