By Levi Magee, Illinois Central College

I’m a first-year student at Illinois Central College (ICC). I’ve known since I joined my high school’s FFA club that agriculture is my passion, even in spite of my quiet suburban upbringing. Even though I enrolled in an applied science degree at ICC, I had no clue what I actually wanted to do with my degree when I finished school. The only thing that I knew for sure, from experience within FFA-related activities and classes, that I loved dirt.

ISA mentorship program participants visiting a field site with the NRCS.

My uncertainty about my future career ended when our group sat down with Dan Sahm, the soil conservationist at the Peoria Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office. He started by going over everything that NCRS does for local farmers, and I knew I was hooked. I love dirt and I love the environment, and this was the best of both worlds. I loved the idea of an agency providing solutions to farmers with environmental problems and even being able to cover parts or even an entire project to both benefit the farmer and the land around them. It even makes me not so disgruntled about paying taxes, knowing that a portion of that money goes towards wonderful projects like this – protecting the people who both grow our food and the land that food grows on.

Growing up, especially outside a farming community, I thought all there was to agriculture was putting some seed in the ground, watering it and watching something grow. Later in life, I learned there is so much more to sustainably producing our food than simply watering crops. It wasn’t until I started taking classes at ICC that I learned how detrimental we can be to our land if we don’t actively work to maintain it instead of taking everything it can offer year after year. I learned about many harmful things that can happen to our land, whether caused by us or natural processes that have been happening long before we arrived.

What made the NRCS visit special for me was realizing there are people out there who actually want to help and really do have a passion for the land that we live on – and the fact that it’s not even a for-profit organization trying to make a quick buck.

Now, even after experiencing everything the Illinois Soybean Association offered us through the mentorship program, my heart is still set on the NRCS. Even though I found every visit beyond interesting, I know everyone has their own passion and vision for themselves, and everyone has their own place in agriculture. This feels like is my calling, and it’s really thanks to this mentorship program that I was able to figure that out. I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one with the same realization – that same “this is what I’m going to do” feeling the moment they walked into the building – just like I did when I walked into the office. This mentorship program was a very valuable experience for us all.