Illinois Farm Family ambassador Vikkie Becker takes influencing to a new level
By Julie Gerke
Vikkie Becker knows farming from the ground up, and she’s using that knowledge to teach the rest of us how a seed — or a sow — becomes part of our everyday lives.
Becker, whose family farms near Alexander, is an Illinois Farm Family ambassador, using social media and shoe leather to share information as an ag influencer. She recently returned from Washington D.C., where she was among 45 people nationwide chosen for the Syngenta Leadership At Its Best program.
Group members were trained in how to share stories to the media, how to tell stories and how to become community leaders. They went to Capitol Hill, where Becker met with Illinois congressional members Mary Miller, R-15th, and Nikki Budsinski, D-13th.
Becker’s parents farmed when she was born, but life happened, she said, and “instead of a farm girl, I became the small-town girl in Greenfield. When I graduated from high school, I moved to Jacksonville, the big city, and fell in love with a farm boy. So ag has kind of always been in my blood.”
She and Marc have been married almost 38 years. “Marc is the farmer,” Vikkie Becker said. “He farms with his nephew and brother. I’m the wife who gets the phone call, ‘Hey, I need a butt in the seat; come drive.” She brings food to the field, helps move equipment from field to field and is a self-described “go-farmer” (go-fer).
She also works at WJVO-WJIL part-time and helps watch grandson Warner, 3, whose dad Reece works for Precision Drainage. The company provides field tiling to wick water from low spots and direct it to drier ground or retention areas.
Teaching people about agriculture comes naturally to Becker, who recalled a long-ago co-worker who asked why farmers were “mowing” fields. Turned out, the co-worker was watching combines harvest. The next weekend, Becker invited her to the farm: “’I’m gonna show you a tractor, a combine and a planter, and let you get an idea of what things are and how big they are.’ She was like a kid in a candy factory.”
She sometimes gets random questions. What does farrowing mean for pigs? (Giving birth). How big is an acre? (About the size of a football field). What’s harvest? (Taking the crops out of a field). In February, she uses the Super Bowl as an example: “I explain how much wouldn’t be without farmers, from the food you eat to the football that’s thrown.”
The Illinois Farm Family coalition brings together representatives of Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Corn Marketing Board, Illinois Soybean Association, Illinois Pork Producers, Illinois Beef Association and Midwest Dairy. IFF uses six ambassadors (like Vikkie Becker) to share the stories of farmers and their products at watchusgrow.org. Becker also shares information on her Facebook page and may extend her reach onto Instagram and TikTok. Fair booths, speaking engagements and media interviews are part of the mix, too.
“We all just promote Illinois ag,” she said. “One guy works for a hog confinement company; another is a seed salesman and farms. There’s a gal who is a dairy farmer. [The website shares] a little bit of all of us from all over.”
Becker also is a member of Illinois Agri Women and American Agri Women. She was one of six people chosen for the AAW national leadership program, and that led to a nomination to the Syngenta program.
People whose farm knowledge may extend only to tractor colors may not realize how intricately farming is tied to our everyday lives. “If farming is not supported or made difficult by laws that are passed, there may not be food,” she said, pointing out people wear clothes made of cotton, a farm commodity, and play with sports balls made with cow hide. Add these to the list: juice and wine made from fruit, milk from cows and goats, nuts from trees; vegetables, cheese, butter, meat and fish; tobacco; and fuel.
“The U.S. produces a third of the world’s corn and soybeans can help produce renewable fuel with biodiesel,” she said. “There are things [we grow] that every person doesn’t realize.”
