The FFA Creed has played a pivotal role in Minnesotan Eric Sawatzke’s life. Joining FFA in eighth grade helped ease the sting of his father’s sale of the family’s dairy herd and helped satisfy Sawatzke’s hunger for a life in agriculture.
In his first weeks as an FFA member, Sawatzke’s advisor challenged the class to memorize the Creed one paragraph at a time for a small prize. After memorizing the entire Creed in one night, he recited it the next day. Sawatzke excelled in local and regional Creed Speaking competitions before taking fifth place at state. He demonstrated such leadership that he received the Star Greenhand Award as well.
As a Minnesota FFA state officer, Sawatzke traveled internationally, met with the Minnesota Congressional delegation and even discussed agriculture topics with former president George W. Bush.
“FFA provided all these opportunities, and I realized early on that the world is whatever you desire to take advantage of,” says Sawatzke, who was also a national FFA officer candidate. “That was extremely exciting for me.”
FFA and his advisor had a positive impact on Sawatzke, and he soon realized that becoming an agriculture teacher was the best way for him to be a part of agriculture since, “I had no family farm to go back to,” he says.
While teaching at Dassel-Cokato High School, Sawatzke organized practice competitions for his FFA students with industry representatives as judges. Erica Nelson, a new staffer for the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association, replaced her boss as judge at the last minute. The competition? Creed Speaking.
“When [Erica] came walking into the room, I was both stunned and excited to meet somebody who was so passionate about agriculture and had just moved to our area,” Sawatzke says.
Joining the Family Operation
The two soon began dating. Erica told Eric her long-term goal was to someday return to her family’s grain and turkey operation, Oakdale Farms, in Douglas County, Minn., where they married in August 2016. That Thanksgiving, the family discussed how the newlyweds could fit into operations and eventually own the farm that has been in Erica’s family since the 1860s. Her great-great-grandmother was the first to expand into turkeys.
Erica and Eric Sawatzke started dating and got married shortly after meeting at an FFA Creed Speaking competition.
When Erica joined Oakdale Farms, her father, Dana Nelson, and uncle, Paul Nelson, led operations focused on breeding turkeys with processes where Paul played a critical role. However, the loss of part of a barn’s roof in 2019 convinced Paul it was time to retire.
“I hadn’t even been farming two years then, so I started looking at what we could do differently,” Erica says. “Raising turkey breeders was all I’d known on this farm, but working for the Turkey Growers Association gave me a broader knowledge of the industry.”
Erica still wanted the opportunity to farm, which she says drove their pivot to raising light hens, which are female birds ready for market at around 12 weeks when they weigh 13-15 pounds. Today, Oakdale Farms raises corn, soybeans and light hens.
“These are the turkeys you like to eat at Thanksgiving,” Erica says, noting they raise about 132,000 birds in a year.
Oakdale Farms specializes in raising turkeys that will help feed the world.
The loss of the barn roof wasn’t the only challenge the couple has overcome. Throughout a four-year period, three wind events took parts of other roofs and Eric battled leukemia soon after Erica had delivered their first baby.
“When I was sick and couldn’t get out of bed, Erica was the one to get up at 2 a.m. if an alarm went off in the barns,” says Eric, who’s cancer-free now. “It was a wild, wild ride the first few years here, but it toughened our skin and made us into leather, that’s for sure.”
Eric now teaches at Erica’s alma mater, West Central Area High School, in the same classroom where she learned the FFA Creed.
In reflecting on the 160-year history of the Nelson family’s farming operation, which now includes Eric, one could say it embodies the FFA Creed, especially parts of the second paragraph: “…work on a good farm … is pleasant as well as challenging; for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life.”
