Northwest suburban residents usually bring a bike or a picnic lunch to the Poplar Creek woods near Hoffman Estates.
But on Wednesday, Bob Dunteman brought a 10-ton combine. All day long, his huge John Deere thundered across 650 acres of Cook County Forest Preserve District land, chopping down cornstalks and spewing their remnants out the back end.
Most Cook County residents imagine prairies, wetlands and woodlands when they think of the forest preserves–land that is officially set aside for the enjoyment of the public and forever protected from development.
But ever since the county bought the Poplar Creek woods land along the Northwest Tollway three decades ago, it has been farmed by the Dunteman family, which has leased it to grow corn and soybeans.
Each year, Cook County leases about 1,000 of its 67,000 acres of forest preserve property to private farmers. In other counties, too, including DuPage and Lake, government-owned forest preserve and open space is annually put under plow by farmers hoping to turn a profit.
Some environmentalists question whether, with open land rapidly dwindling in the metropolitan area, any of the public property set aside for leafy groves, rolling prairies and jogging paths ought to be put to such a commercial use. After all, who can picnic in a cornfield?
But county officials defend the practice, saying farmers’ lease fees help cover the cost of maintaining bike trails and making the rest of the forest preserves accessible and up-to-date.
Eventually, the county wants to phase out farming so the land can revert back to its natural state. But in the meantime, the yearly cultivation helps keep the soil fertile so future reforestation efforts are more likely to succeed.
Officials said it has always been the district’s mission to preserve and maintain the land for future generations. But as funny as it may sound, that includes future generations of farmers, they said.
In addition, farmland adds ecological diversity to the district’s holdings. And county officials said it wouldn’t make sense to kick the farmers off the land and leave the fields bare just so weeds and other pests could take over.
“Everybody benefits,” said Brian Berg, a spokesman for the district. “It’s a win-win situation.”
For the farmers, the county land is a tiny island in a sea of suburban sprawl. Where they once harvested crops amid spacious fields and silence, they now are sandwiched between office parks, subdivisions, shopping malls and mini-marts.
Dunteman, 33, whose family also farms land leased from private owners in Kane County, remembers harvesting his father’s crops in the early 1980s near Golf and Meacham Roads in Schaumburg. Today, a giant sporting goods store sits on that land.
“It’s inevitable that, with the exception of the acres in the forest preserve, farmers are just getting squeezed west,” Dunteman said as he slowly steered his combine between rows of golden corn stalks.
The farmers who have turned to the county to continue their trade have two options for cultivating the land: They can lease it upfront and keep all the crops they harvest, or they can donate one-third of their harvested crop to the county.
The county uses the donated portion to feed wildlife during the winter, including animals that are used at the nature centers as educational exhibits for the public.
Some of it also feeds the animals at Trailside Museum in River Forest, the only wildlife rehabilitation clinic in Cook County that serves injured and orphaned animals too weak to survive on their own.
But farming is slowly being discontinued on the county-owned land, in part to let the forest reclaim itself. About 350 acres that the Duntemans once farmed, for example, have been replanted with trees or reclaimed by nature.
At Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington, which is owned by the Cook County Forest Preserve District, officials hope to phase out farming by the year 2000 because of booming wildlife populations.
About 130 acres has been used for private farming at Crabtree. But geese and deer have been flocking to the field to feast on corn kernels.
Officials fear a deer overpopulation. The geese, meanwhile, are just plain messy with their droppings.
“It is to the point where we really don’t need to attract more geese,” said Charles Westcott, a naturalist and director of the center. “They are there because of food . . . because of protection. And if there is open water, that is an additional plus.”
At Poplar Creek, Dunteman pointed out rows of corn not doing as well as others, mostly because of less-than-desirable soil conditions. In fact, Dunteman and other farmers helping him harvest Wednesday said it doesn’t bother them much that farmland around Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg is disappearing. The high clay content in the area’s soil made it less suitable for growing crops anyway.
The disappearance of rich, black soil in parts of Kane and McHenry Counties, however, is upsetting, they said. Some also wondered aloud where all those people will one day get their food once all the farmland is gone.
“I think that certain people take it for granted and take farming for granted,” said Chet Morris, who was helping Dunteman harvest the corn. “It’s good farmland, prime farmland. The next thing you know, they take it, and a subdivision goes in.”
