Minnesota Tops the Turkey Industry’s Pecking Order

Transcript

[sound element: NSS intro theme]

HOST: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.

ANCHOR: In today's broadcast, several Minnesota counties are assisting federal immigration enforcement efforts. Then, as families gather to give thanks, we uncover some little-known facts about our state's turkey industry, and information about a new tree disease impacting the state.

I'm Gracie J.

Eight Minnesota counties have signed agreements with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to help identify and remove people who may be subject to deportation. According to the ICE website, the sheriff's offices in Cass, Crow Wing, Freeborn, Itasca, Jackson, Kandiyohi, Mille Lacs and Sherburne counties are now partnering with ICE. The program allows certain federal immigration officer duties to be delegated to local law enforcement under ICE oversight. The agreements come as ICE ramps up enforcement efforts nationwide and here in Minnesota.

Next, from family farms to presidential pardons, Xan Holston looks at some ways Minnesota tops the turkey industry's pecking order.

Xan Holston: Most Minnesota turkeys go from farm to freezer to food on the table. But for the last fifteen years, five sets of Minnesota toms—that's what adult male turkeys are called—have had their lives spared.

Nat Sound: President Biden granting clemency to Peach and Blossom.

Xan Holston: In 2024, President Biden pardoned Blossom and Peach. The year before, it was Liberty and Bell. In fact, over the past fifteen years, Minnesotan farmers have had five sets of birds pardoned. But after their commuted sentences, what happens to the birds?

Xan Holston: A year on and Blossom and Peach are living the good life at Farm America in Waseca, Minnesota, where program coordinator Kari Wadd looks after them.

Kari Wadd: They're in a beautiful coop in our 1930s farmyard during the warm season months.

Xan Holston: They go for daily walks. They get student visitors. And they've got a swank little home.

Kari Wadd: It's a glorified, I would say, ice fishing house. Fully finished, doors, windows, has a little ramp that they have to go in and out.

Xan Holston: It's not surprising that Minnesota has so many birds pardoned. It's the United States' largest turkey producer. According to data from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, the state produces nearly 40 million birds a year from about 700 turkey farms. One of those is Erica Sawatzke's Oakdale Farm in Alexandria. As a fifth-generation turkey farmer, she, her husband, and their six- and two-year-old daughters raise about 120 thousand birds a year.

Erica Sawatzke: My great, great grandmother is the one that started the turkeys on our farm.

Xan Holston: Back then, the turkeys were just a way to make supplemental income to their traditional farm. But as time went on—

Erica Sawatzke: Each generation after her has continued on with the turkeys and expanded in their own way and kind of followed the industry.

Xan Holston: A couple of years ago, they switched from breeding eggs to sell to hatcheries to growing them for meat. Just recently Sawatzke said she shipped out 17,000 birds—fresh, not frozen—to grace tables.

Erica Sawatzke: Seventeen thousand people on Thanksgiving will be eating turkey that was raised on our farm.

Xan Holston: For now, Sawatzke hasn't had a bird pardoned—that's an honor reserved for the National Turkey Federation's Chairperson, who changes each year. But…

Erica Sawatzke: …that is absolutely a goal of mine: to be able to do that one day.

Xan Holston: Sawatzke is close friends with John Zimmerman, the 2024 NTF Chair who raised Peach and Blossom. He invited her family to Washington for the pardon—giving her a glimpse of the moment she hopes her own birds will experience someday.

Erica Sawatzke: To go on that trip last year—that was our actual first family vacation, and my daughters, it was their first time flying.

Xan Holston: Running a family farm means they don't get to spread their wings very often.

Erica Sawatzke: But we just felt like it was so cool that their first trip on an airplane included turkeys.

Xan Holston: For North Star Stories, I'm Xan Holston.

Anchor: You are listening to North Star Stories.

University of Minnesota researchers have identified the pathogen that causes sudden oak death in the state for the first time. The disease has devastated West Coast forests for decades and continues to spread east, with no cure available. Early detection is considered the best tool to slow its advance. Researchers detected the pathogen this summer in a sample from a plant at a Hennepin County nursery. State and university scientists will continue statewide monitoring at nurseries and Christmas tree farms.

[sound element: NSS outro theme]

HOST: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.