Stewards of the Land and Cattle

The Isermann family has been farming near Streator, IL since 1851. Traditionally a row crop operation, the Isermanns looked to beef cattle as an opportunity that might help them grow and diversify their family farm.

David and his wife, Susan, farm with their son Jim, his wife, Lori, and their three young children. Jim decided he wanted to come back to the farm after college with the desire to raise cattle and his dad embraced the idea. While the family has been farming in this area for a long time, they're fairly recent beef producers. The cattle enterprise started with just six cow-calf pairs, but has grown to a cow-calf herd of 60 Angus-based females. As their cow herd grew, they looked for solutions to better utilize row crop land to support the cow herd, while also improving the land for farming.

The Isermanns work 900 acres in Livingston and LaSalle Counties. Around 120 of those acres are in permanent forage with a rotational grazing system. The rest are in production using a row crop rotation and almost half of that land has permanent fencing to allow for cover crop and crop residue grazing. The intention was to pursue a rotational grazing system to try to raise as many cattle possible on a small amount of acreage to increase profitability. While cover crops weren’t in the original plan, Dave and Jim saw early potential in incorporating them as an added feed source.