By ANN HINCH

Associate Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Kids aren’t the only ones who look forward to contests at the annual Indiana State Fair – a number of adults also get to take home special honors.

Take, for instance, the Seger family, a great number of whom showed up at this month’s AgriVision Awards hosted by Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch to accept one of the two awards, honoring their late patriarch, Jerry Seger. Of his eight sons, six are still living and work in his two companies – Farbest Foods and Wabash Valley Produce.

And then there are the Craigs – Tim and his parents, Jim and Carol – who came to the awards ceremony to accept the other award on behalf of James Allen Insurance based in Carmel. Jim, the company’s board chair and chief underwriting officer, has worked in insurance for more than 40 years and James Allen is celebrating 25 years.

Now in its 12th year, the Indiana AgriVision Awards were created to honor an individual who has reshaped Indiana agriculture through their visionary ideas in innovation, technology and/or agribusiness. The awards come from the Indiana State Department of Agriculture and the office of Lieutenant Governor.

James Allen Insurance specializes in agricultural insurance. Tim, the company CEO, said about five years ago it was the first firm to sell avian influenza loss policies to farmers, and earlier this year it began selling policies for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome and porcine epidemic diarrhea; so far, it covers 75-100 locations with these policies. Just recently it started policies to cover African swine fever and food-and-mouth disease, too.

In 1999, Tim was inspired to create James Allen’s underwriting division after his father began offering a farm pollution policy to clients. Tim works closely with insurance market Lloyd’s of London on policies, and he said James Allen is consistently rolling out innovative insurance products to meet new challenges for ag producers. James Allen Insurance covers farmers and ranchers in 47 states with policies standard and unusual

Jim said he still owns a small farm, but the bulk of his farm work was with his grandfather when he was young.

In the 1950s, Crouch said Jerry Seger bought his father’s feed mill in southwestern Indiana and began his own family farm, with an eye for creating a feed business for chickens and turkeys. Eventually he owned the flocks and their eggs, and then began marketing them for sale; today the two companies employ about 2,000 people.

Jerry and Lila had eight sons, all of who worked in the family businesses. Ted Seger, president of Farbest Foods, said his father – who died 15 years ago – would have said of receiving the award that “employees are our greatest assets,” along with area farmers.

“I’d like to thank all my brothers,” he said, noting of the eight men, six are still alive, and all working for the family businesses. “They are the ones who helped turn (Jerry’s) vision into a multinational company that sells all over the world.”

The company, he said, is “much larger than just the six or seven or eight of us.” Growing up, he explained he and his brothers were all competitive and he credits their parents for providing them with abundant opportunities.

“We all get along very well, on and off ‘the court,’ if you will,” he said. Ted has been with Farbest – which raises, feeds and processes turkeys at a rate of 60,000 per day – for 36 years and is the only brother there. Four others work for Wabash Valley, which processes 7 million eggs daily, and the eldest is an Indianapolis attorney who serves on the businesses’ boards.

Jerry’s original vision when he started the family farm might not have extended to national and international sales, but Ted said he did believe “if he could raise it, he could sell it” at least locally. The most valuable things he learned from his father are “do what you say you’re going to do;” that anything worth your time is worth doing right; and as a business owner it’s important to financially take care of employees and growers who provide you their services.