Group helps women connect, develop mental fitness

ROCK ISLAND, Ill.— Mental fitness is a personal understanding that individuals have the ability to build a happier and more productive life.

“With mental fitness, you can understand your strengths and weaknesses a lot more and it helps you figure out your meaning in life,” said Laura Fidler, who is one of three women who started the empowHerU organization.

“Susan Miller is the brainchild of empowHerU and then she pulled in Julie Reeder and me,” said Fidler during a presentation at the Women in Agriculture Conference organized by Illinois Farm Bureau at Bally’s Quad Cities in Rock Island. “We have recently expanded and added two new board members.”

The group organizes socials, speed networking and events with guest speakers.

“For me to achieve mental fitness, it’s regular exercise,” Fidler said. “And being good at learning and trying something new.”

The empowHerU group provides women an opportunity to connect to one another.

“I did not realize the need, but when you see the networking and friendships that have come from this, you realize that women don’t concentrate on themselves as much,” Fidler said. “We are so worried about the kids, the husband and the farm, we’ve got to learn how to connect with other women.”

Fidler grew up in eastern Colorado on a dairy farm.

“I was raised in a barn and now I have two daughters and they were also raised in a livestock auction barn,” said the speaker who works at the family owned and operated Fairview Sale Barn. “They are still involved at the sale barn that has been in the family for over 50 years.”

In addition, Fidler is involved with the Livestock Marketing Association, where she has worked with membership service and has now moved to the governmental affairs committee.

Recently, Fidler traveled with the LMA to Washington, D.C.

“I think everybody should go to Washington, D.C., and experience the history, as well as the political environment,” she said. “While we were there, we hit on several key topics for the livestock industry.”

Among those topics was the electronic ID tag requirement for livestock that move across state lines which went into effect on Nov. 5.

“It is a requirement for sexually intact cattle that are 18 months or older and all dairy cattle,” Fidler said.

“One of the concerns of LMA is we want to make sure it stays within the 18 month and older criteria and it doesn’t go younger,” she said. “If it goes younger and we have a 1,500-head sale, you can imagine the workflow issue if we have to run all those cattle through the chute.”

The LMA is also focused on recordkeeping for this program.

“Anything that is kept in the database, we’re concerned about who has access to that information,” Fidler said. “Information like where the cattle came from, their rate of gain or their genetics.”

Livestock Risk Protection Insurance is available for fed cattle, feeder cattle and pigs to help protect against market volatility.

“You pick your delivery date for when you are going to market your cattle and purchase an insurance level,” Fidler said. “If the price on the day you sell them is above, you just owe the premium. If it is below, then you get a payment.”

Another option for livestock producers is the Pasture, Rangeland and Forage Insurance Policy.

“This covers your feed sources and it’s a good tool in times of drought,” Fidler said.

“It looks at a window and you pick two to six two-month periods that look at the annual rainfall for a grid,” she explained. “If the rainfall is below, you get a payment, or if the rainfall is above, you just owe your premium.”

These two programs, Fidler said, are good risk management tools.

“The benefits are there are no margin calls and no upfront costs,” she said.

Finding workers continues to be a challenge for the livestock sector, as well as for other areas of the agriculture industry.

“We have trouble finding people that know cattle and have been around cattle,” the speaker said. “The H-2A program is great, but it doesn’t help out livestock people as much as row crops because we’re not seasonal.”

Fidler would like changes made to the program to allow H-2A workers to be employed in the livestock sector.

“In 2024, there were about 380,000 H-2A workers in the U.S., and of those only 3% were tied to livestock and of those there were only 3,000 people that worked directly with cattle,” she said.

The members of LMA recognize the need for people and resources to help those in the livestock industry develop thriving operations for future generations.

“Out of our January meeting, we decided it was time to take action,” Fidler said.

“LMA created a Common Ground Summit to get people with ties to food sources together in the same room to talk about the future of agriculture and what we need to do to make up for deficiencies,” she said.

The vision, Fidler said, is to unify the livestock industry.

“We want to make sure we have a solid food source for our future,” she said. “We want to create opportunities to provide access to land and capital and look for ways to attract the next generation and keep them.”

In addition, the goals of the summit are to develop mentorship opportunities for future livestock producers and possibly establish tax incentives.