As another harvest season ends, Kendall County residents don’t need eagle eyes to tell that things continue to rapidly change around these parts.

Although it paused following the 2008 real estate crash, Kendall’s growth has continued, with commercial and residential developments seeming to steadily replace ever more of the county’s farmland.

Between 2020 and 2024 alone, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Kendall County’s population grew by 8.18%, the highest percentage of growth of any Illinois county.

During that four-year span, the Census Bureau estimated that Kendall grew by almost 11,000 residents.

It’s good to keep in mind – sometimes difficult for those of us who grew up here when Kendall was a small, overwhelmingly rural agriculture-based county – that times and the region’s character have changed in major ways.

For instance, the Census Bureau says Kendall’s median household income is a remarkable $110,474 these days; the poverty rate is a low 5.1%; the county’s median monthly housing costs with a mortgage are $2,229; and the median gross monthly rent is a truly astonishing $1,763.

Bearing all that in mind (and it’s a lot), it’s also good to keep in mind that even now Kendall has a large agriculture base. According to the 2022 U.S. Census of Agriculture – the latest – 63% of Kendall County’s land still is being farmed. That’s a lot of land – about 129,000 acres worth, in fact. But it’s quite a bit less than the 195,000 acres being farmed back in 1950.

Seventy-five years ago, the agricultural census counted 1,051 farms in Kendall County. Almost all were family operations that generated children for the county’s one-room rural schools, congregations for rural churches, and customers for grain elevators, and in-town farm implement dealers and stores.

During that era, farms were diversified, growing crops as well as livestock for market. In 1950, 861 – almost 80% – of the county’s farms reported having livestock on hand.

Then agriculture technology advances in machinery and crops began altering that type of farming. By 1987, with the change to specializing in either livestock or grain farming, only 118 county farms reported having livestock. And the number of farms had not only decreased by half, but they had increased in size to an average of 335 acres compared to 179 acres back in 1950.

Those changes, and others, have continued right up through 2022. That year, interestingly enough, Kendall County farmers had many more acres in soybeans, 51,240 acres, than the 8,955 acres grown in 1950. Meanwhile, in 2022, Kendall farmers reported growing 62,600 acres of corn compared to the 77,973 grown in 1950.

The disappearance of livestock from county farms was illustrated by the amount of county pastureland collapsing from 1950’s 23,923 acres to just 229 acres in 2022 and the 2,236 acres of corn harvested for silage for animal feed in 1950 was so little it wasn’t even reported in 2022.

One surprising aspect of the change in farms and farming through the years, and emphasized in the 2022 farm census was the increase in the number of small farms in Kendall County.

In 1949, only 5% of Kendall County’s farms covered 1 to 9 acres and just 4% covered 10 to 49 acres. That year, a little over two-thirds of the county’s 1,051farms ranged in size from 50 to 179 acres.

By 2022, smaller operations had surged to total almost half the county’s farms. According to the 2022 farm census, 18% of the county’s farms covered one to nine acres and 31% covered 10 to 49 acres. Meanwhile only 21% of Kendall County farms were in the 50 to 179 acre size category in 2022, a marked contrast to that sized operation 75 years ago.

Why this is happening is a bit of a puzzle, especially since the move from medium to huge farming operations was the norm for decades after the 1960s. Somehow smaller plots are becoming available as larger acreages are subdivided.

Kendall-Grundy Farm Bureau Manager, Jenna Siegel said that change might be just in time to supply a boutique of materials from herbs and spices to vegetable crops for the popular farmers’ markets and the growing number of farm to table restaurants in the area.

Given the growth moving into Kendall from virtually all directions, these smaller agricultural operations are ideally placed close to the growing markets they’re serving.

And as for farmers themselves, these days the agricultural census doesn’t count farmers, it counts farm producers – previously called farm operators.

The department’s official definition of a producer is: “Persons or entities, including farmers, ranchers, loggers, agricultural harvesters and fishermen, that engage in the production or harvesting of an agricultural product.”

Given that definition, it’s clear one farm can have more than one “operator,” and thus the change in nomenclature.

Interestingly enough, locally in 2022, a surprisingly large number of new farmers entered a profession many believe is disappearing. According to the farm census, 149 of the county’s 665 producers were considered new farmers. Farming’s still a man’s world, although women’s participation continues to grow. Of the total number of county farm producers, 468 were men while 197 were female.

Finally, farming also still seems an older person’s game, at least locally. Only 66 of Kendall County’s farm producers were younger than 35. Most, 355, were between the ages of 35 and 64, while 244 were older than 65.

So, while continuing to be supplanted by growth, farming still is an important part of Kendall County’s economic life and its culture still influences how many county residents see themselves, their families, and their communities. And it still remains a chancy business to be involved in.

As if the vagaries of weather and market conditions aren’t bad enough, farmers these days also have to deal with the effects of political interference in markets they spent decades building.

It’s still some comfort, though, that we don’t have to drive many minutes west or south before Kendall County’s rural culture and character reasserts itself even in these days of change.

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