Communication, efficiency and individuality are core values for Dawn Kress, a mom of three who raises pigs with her husband in Iowa. She’s passionate about pork and helping other women who want to live a healthy lifestyle.
“By realizing my core values, I found my place within our operation and the pork industry,” Kress says. “I enjoy sharing my perspective on the quality product we raise as it relates to other busy moms wearing all the hats and doing all the things.”
Finding her voice and being able to share online has been a journey for Kress. She admits she was pretty quiet and didn’t share much of herself. That began to change when she was faced with a scary diagnosis in 2014 after the birth of her second daughter: thyroid cancer.
“That was an awakening for me,” she says. “It was like a second-life situation. I always had these aspirations, but I would keep them inside. I realized some things in my life needed to change. I had to start focusing on my overall health.”
Finding her way
Kress grew up in rural Iowa. She fed scraps to her uncle’s pigs, detasseled corn in high school, and even bred sows on a second date with her now husband, Ryan. While she felt connected to ag, she still wondered how she fit into the industry.
“I literally learned to walk in the dairy parlor while my parents were milking cows,” Kress says. “I always had a connection with agriculture growing up and living in a rural community, but I felt like I was removed from life on the farm after my parents divorced and I moved to town. For many years, I worked a corporate job. Even though I was living on the farm, I felt like an outsider.”
Kress was inspired to open up about her story after she heard a message by Mel Robbins called the 5 Second Rule, which basically means the moment you have an instinct to act on a goal, you count down 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move or your brain will stop you. One thing that will increase your feelings of control over your life is a bias toward action.
“It started to click that I needed to like come out of my shell and share what I was thinking and feeling,” she says. “After I started blogging in 2019, I realized I wasn’t the only one that had these thoughts and feelings as a farm wife or just a wife in rural Iowa. People were interested in hearing about farm life and motherhood.”
Kress also became a certified mentor in integrative nutrition to further help other women find a healthy lifestyle that fits who they were designed to be.
“I really enjoy sharing the message of creating a healthy lifestyle and what that could look like for different women,” she says. “I want women to feel like they aren’t alone and that they are understood for being who they are.”
Part of sharing also includes showing photos and stories of farm life, especially when a new set of baby pigs comes into the farm. The family has a partnership with two other families as a wean to finish operation.
“My favorite times are when we get new pigs in and when we ship the market hogs,” she says. “There’s just something about the beginning and ending of the cycle that are exciting to me.”
Kress also enjoys sharing her passion for cooking with pork and its health benefits. While she admits she doesn’t necessarily share specific pork recipes, she wants to inspire other households to cook with it.
“Pork is such a quality protein source,” she says. “It’s also economical to feed a family without going broke. I want to get that message out a lot more to mothers. Busy moms all have that same struggle; we must get food on the table. No matter if we’re also helping on the farm, working a nine to five, or shuffling kids around, making dinner plans is a common problem we all have to solve.”
By sharing her story, photos and videos of farm and rural life, and being an advocate for how pork can fit into a healthy lifestyle, Kress hopes she can inspire other women.
“For many years, I didn’t know where or how I could fit into our operation working a corporate job, and not doing the day-to-day farm jobs or handling the books,” she says. “The generations before us did life differently than we are raising our families now. I feel blessed to be in this era where we do have voices sharing their stories and trailblazing all the paths.”
Kress shares about raising pigs, and being a farm wife and mother through Instagram and her website at Dawnmarie.co. She started her podcast, Harvesting Her Way, three years ago as a way for her and other guests to empower, inspire and educate women about cultivating a healthy lifestyle.
“I enjoy providing a platform for females to shine and be heard by women in rural and ag communities,” she says.
We will be uniting together June 3-8 for PORK Week across all of our Farm Journal platforms to elevate the important role the pork industry plays in feeding the world. Share your stories and post photos on social media using #PORKWeek to help us honor the pork industry. From “AgDay TV” to “AgriTalk” to “U.S. Farm Report” to PorkBusiness.com and everything in between, tune in and join us as we acknowledge the most noble profession there is: feeding people.
Read More:
What’s On the Horizon for U.S. Pork? Business Leaders Speak Up
5 Ways to Grow Pork Markets in the U.S.
Pork Industry Profitability: How to Set Yourself Up for Success
