(bold upbeat music) ♪ Hey ♪ Hey ♪ Hey - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth-generation farmer.

So what does that mean?

That means four generations before me built a farm, made it a place where I could come back and start my farming career.

But what is a fifth-generation farmer compared to a first-generation farmer?

Does a first-generation farmer build their farm themself?

Do they have farm experience?

It's complicated, but we're gonna have fun talking.

Today we're with Roberta and Eric Dolbeare.

How you guys doing?

- Good.

- Doing great.

- Yeah, you're from Pleasant Hill, Illinois.

- That's correct.

- Where is that?

- It's on the west side of the state.

We're about an hour and a half up river, Mississippi River from St. Louis, about an hour south of Quincy, Illinois.

- Gotcha.

Now what county?

- Well, we farm in Pike and Calhoun Counties.

We live in Calhoun, kind of real close to the county line.

- Ah, you ever seen a whitetail deer?

(Eric laughs) - We, do see those occasionally, (laughs).

Sometimes unfortunately, so.

- Pike County is like the world capital or whatever.

- Yeah, they're all eating our crops.

- Yeah, (laughs) right.

- Okay.

Do you hunt?

- We do not.

We do rent out our ground to hunters.

- Yeah, because you wanna- - We do sometimes, when we get a nuisance permit during the summer, then we will.

- Okay, you guys are, we're gonna be talking about what you are, as far as what generation farmer, but you are farming.

What do you raise on your farm?

- Corn, soybeans, and winter wheat.

- Oh, you go with the wheat, huh?

Y'all like to work.

- Like our hill green.

- Work in the summer.

- (laughs) Oh my.

That's true.

(Eric laughs) - Now, are you far enough south that you can get a pretty good yield on your double crop beans?

- Yes, usually, yeah, usually it works out okay.

The exception would be if we have a really dry period after we plant the soybeans, and they don't get adequate growth.

But normally we'll get a decent crop of soybeans.

- We drove through your area.

Are you guys wet right now?

- Not overly wet.

- No, we had a, yeah, a big rain came through here about a week or so ago, but it's drying out, and actually we're gonna start some field work this afternoon.

- I'm sorry?

- We're gonna start some field work this afternoon.

- Today's March 13th that we're recording.

(Roberta laughs) - He's all right.

- I don't like to hear that.

(Rob laughs) On the way to the studio today, I mean, we passed sprayers and fertilizer and stuff like that, so it's coming.

- Yeah, yeah, it sure is.

We've had a couple of neighbors that have run some ground, that's right up close to the bluff that drains out really nice, and it looked like it worked good.

And I did my shovel test with several fields yesterday and identified one that we can actually start in today.

- Nice, okay.

Says here, you guys are huge, huge Hawkeye fans.

- Oh, no, that - No, no, - not hardly.

- that would not be correct.

- I like that Caitlyn Clark, man.

I tell you what.

- It would be the Cyclones.

- Cyclones.

- bet, yeah.

- Cyclones.

- Iowa State Cyclones.

- Never heard of them.

- Yeah, right.

- Yeah, well, right.

(all laughing) But we were, and are Caitlyn Clark fans, as well.

- [Rob] How can you not be?

- Exactly.

- Yeah, really.

- I just friended her on Facebook, in fact.

- Did she friend you back?

- Well, she accepted my friendship.

I was kind of surprised.

I kind of did it to see, you know, if.

- Yeah.

Well, where'd you two meet?

- We met up at Iowa State.

We actually lived on a coed dorm floor our senior year in college.

- Oh.

- Separate rooms.

- Yeah, separate rooms, be we were not.

- We were not, yeah.

(laughs) Guys on one end, and girls on the other.

- [Rob] Kinda scandalous.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, but.

- That was the '70s, you know?

(Rob laughing) Wild times.

(laughs) - Did you just meet in the dorm?

- We did.

- Yep, yeah.

- We hung around together.

We were friends.

Several, four of them- - Well, we still are.

- Yeah, right.

That's true.

(laughs) That's true.

- That's kind how it started.

(laughs) - Friends before we started dating.

- [Rob] And how long have you been married?

- It'll be 48 years in November.

- Whew, 48 years.

- Glad you asked her, not me.

(Roberta and Eric laughing) - He didn't have to say that.

(laughs) What's the secret?

- Um... - She travels a lot.

(Roberta and Rob laughing) - [Rob] Oh my gosh.

You're 0 for 2 now.

- Right, right.

The hole's getting deeper, huh?

- Well, I mean, it is.

I mean, today's society, it seems like it's hard to find couples that have been married and as happy as you guys are.

People wanna know how, how do I do it?

- Well, you know, really, I guess thinking about it, we've have a lot of similar interests, but we also have different interests.

And so, I don't know, it just kind of works out pretty good, I guess.

- Good communication.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So I love to be with you, but you know, sometimes... - (laughs) Yeah, right.

- Hey, you gonna be going awhile?

That's all right.

I'll see you when you get back.

(laughs) (Rob laughs) - Now, Roberta, you did not grow up on a farm, correct?

- I did not, no.

I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa.

And ironically, my sister and I both married farmers.

And I think that is one of the, I don't wanna say hazard, but one of the opportunities (Eric laughs) of going to Iowa State, you're probably gonna meet somebody that's in the ag field.

But it turned out well.

- And Eric, you grew up on a farm?

- Well, actually, no.

I grew up in a small town of Louisiana, Missouri.

It's a river town.

- Okay.

- And my dad ran a grain elevator.

He grew up on a farm, and then he eventually bought what was his parents' place.

And so we kinda started, he kinda farmed part-time while he was in the grain business, and when he left that, then he farmed full-time.

But he always lived in town.

And so we really didn't move to the farm until after we were married.

- Okay, so when you graduated, did you guys go right into farming?

- Yeah.

- You farmed with your dad for awhile?

- That's right, yeah.

For a couple of years.

Worked for him, and we had some joint operation, and then, I don't know, after a few years, we ventured off on our own.

- [Rob] Well, how'd you end up in Pleasant Hill?

- How did that happen?

- You gotta tell that story.

Well.

(laughs) (Rob and Eric laugh) We were living in a very small house, one-bedroom house that you kind of make room with the rooms you have.

And we have a boy and a girl, and they were getting to the age where they really needed their own space.

So he came home one day, and says, "Hey, I found a farm for sale down below Pleasant Hill," which I really wasn't real familiar with Pleasant Hill at that time.

So we moved down there, and that kind of, it had farm acreage with it too, so.

- Yeah, so you were surfing the web and found a farm?

How'd you find a farm back then?

- Driveway, I think.

- I don't exactly remember how I came across that, but I think the realtor contacted me for some reason, I don't really know.

And I knew this individual, and we went down and looked at it, and it seemed like it was the right move.

There's some good farmland on it.

Had a really nice house.

It was a big step up for us.

Had a few buildings that we could utilize for equipment.

So it just, even though the location maybe isn't where we would've picked at first, it still, it looked pretty good.

And it wasn't a long move.

It was only about 25 miles from where we lived.

- Okay, I'm trying to put myself in your situation.

You're young, couple kids, just been working for your dad.

I mean, to start a farm?

First of all, you gotta buy the farm, and then, did you have equipment?

- So when we were living near El Dara, a very small community up in Pike County.

During that time, I started working for a seed corn company.

And so I did that for a number of years.

And I was also farming kind of on the side, kinda like how, I guess, how Dad had done.

So I was still working in the seed business, and that's when we moved down to Pleasant Hill.

But we just acquired equipment.

That was a model of the first tractor that we actually bought.

- Yeah, I'm not real, I'm not real happy about this.

- I thought you were an IH guy, but you're not, huh?

(laughs) - No, no.

This whole interview has been uncomfortable.

(Eric and Roberta laughing) But yeah, so what do we have here?

- So this is an International 1256, and that's a scale model of the very first tractor that we bought.

- And this probably was a big tractor back in that time.

- It was, yeah.

- It seemed very big at the time.

(laughs) - Yeah, it was a big tractor in its day.

And I knew the folks that had owned it and had bought it new.

And so we wound up buying it after they traded it in.

And they had turned up the horsepower.

It was running 200 horsepower, and I thought that was just like, so cool.

And it really worked out great for a number of years, until it blew the motor up, so.

- [Rob] Oh, yeah, that'll happen.

- So unfortunately we had to get rid of the tractor.

- So was this your everything, your planting, your tillage?

- Chores.

It was everything.

- Really?

- Yeah.

We had one tractor, and we did it all with it.

(laughs) - My gosh.

- And in the wintertime, if it wasn't plugged in, it would take all day to get it going.

And you just almost wanted to let it run all night, (laughs) rather than fight that again.

- How's your hearing?

- Not good.

(laughs) - So the turbo on that, cranking 200 horsepower, and you always turn to the right to look over your shoulder.

And so my left ear, I lost it, lost some hearing in that.

- You're not alone (Eric laughs) in agriculture, my gosh.

We just did a podcast with an audiologist, which I thought was not real interesting.

I couldn't believe the comments that people, because you know, she talked about the ringing in the ears, and you think about it, agriculture, especially before like, the, - Before the sound, yeah.

- the soundproof cabs came in, and that.

- Yeah.

- Which which are not soundproof, but that's, - You're right.

it was a nice, (laughs) - But they are way better.

- They're a lot better than that.

- Well, and you know, most people didn't know what they were doing to their hearing, you know.

We didn't, running that.

- Yeah, right.

- Didn't have the internet back then.

- That's right.

- You'd be happy to know though, Rob, that we do have other colors now.

- I'm proud of you guys.

Do they happen to be green?

- We do have green.

- We do.

- We have a couple blue and we- - And we have a red.

We have a red as well.

- We have a red as.

- Yeah, so we're diverse.

- Hey, you're getting there.

(laughs) (Eric and Roberta laugh) Now, Roberta, were you, what were you doing during this whole time as the farm was starting?

- Well, my college degree was in communications and journalism, they called it back then.

And when I moved to Louisiana, I was able to get a job in the marketing department at Stark Brothers Nurseries, working on their catalog and advertising.

- That's the one you get like, I don't know, in the mail still today, right?

- Well, I think they're all online now.

You can still, unfortunately, I think.

But worked with them for several years.

Did a stint of being in business for myself and rented office space from them, but worked with others.

Kind of stayed in that gardening horticulture industry.

And then in, joined the farm full-time in 2018, '17, I think it was.

- And Eric, you worked with the USDA.

Like, when was that in your career?

- Right, I was not a career employee, but I was, I worked in Iraq from late 2008 to early 2010.

- Oh, okay.

- And I was, yeah, I was- - How was that for you?

- (laughs) Yeah.

- Well, that was an interesting time, yeah.

- I was sent over there as an agriculture advisor to work with the Iraqi governmental officials, but also ag professionals, to help them kind of build up their agriculture sector.

And then I came home on the farm for a year and a half or so, and then was contacted again and asked to go to Afghanistan.

And so I spent, I went over there in late... (laughs) - [Rob] Were you okay with this?

- Well, yeah, you know, I tell the story about before, we were out for coffee one Saturday, and he said, "You know, I've been thinking about taking, maybe looking at a job with the USDA."

And I thought, "Oh, okay.

Well, that's fine."

- Yeah, that's not out of the ordinary.

- Yeah.

And then he said, "It's in Iraq."

I kind of backpedaled a little bit and said, "Well, how about we pray about this?"

- Yeah, I'd say in 2008, that was Obama, right?

- Yeah, it was during the surge, is when I was sent over.

- Oh, great time.

- Yeah, but.

(laughs) - Well anyway, Communion the next day, the minister's message, you know, go out into the world.

Show you're a Christian by your actions, not by your words.

And it's like, you didn't have to respond quite that fast, you know.

(Eric laughs) - They're talking about - But anyway.

- somebody else.

(laughs) - Yeah, whoo.

But anyway, I knew he was embedded with the Marines most of the time.

And so we just had to say it'll work out.

- Yeah.

So do you know how to grow poppies now?

(Roberta laughs) - Well, I actually saw some, but no, I was trying to disseminate information, but not learn how to grow poppies.

- What you were teaching them to grow stuff?

- Well, so they're- - What can they grow?

- Most of Iraq is a desert, but they do have areas where they grow crops.

And so the main, I guess job that I worked on there, was reintroducing hybrid seed corn to 'em.

They had used that back in the late '60s.

But then under Saddam Hussein, for some reason, it went away.

And so through the project that the Marines wanted me to head up, then I worked with ag professionals on reintroducing hybrid seed corn.

- Huh.

Okay, all right, we could talk about that forever.

You guys do a lot.

Tell me about the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

- (laughs) Go ahead.

- So, we fly, and we'll do overflight missions of the rivers, Illinois River, Mississippi River, sometimes the Missouri River.

And it's in support of the Coast Guard.

And so we're civilians, we're volunteers in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, but while we're on a mission, we do that under Coast Guard orders, and so we're part of the Coast Guard during that time.

And so we're looking primarily for anything suspicious or unusual, and depends on the time of year.

We'll do ice patrol, ice recon, to notify sector upper, which is kind of a, I guess one of the head offices that we would report in to.

We would just give them a condition report of what the river is, also during flooding.

And then occasionally during the summertime, you know, we have been called to do a search for a person in water, PIW - Are you looking for moonshiners?

Like, back in the day.

(Roberta and Eric laugh) Like, little pillars of smoke coming up from the woods?

- Well, if they're along the river, we might be looking for 'em, but if they're inland, no, that's not us.

- Well, and this is, this is you too, right?

- Right, yeah, Eric's the pilot, and I did training to become what's called the air crew.

And so basically I'm kind of watching for unusual sightings.

I'll take photos of things that we see, barge traffic, how the conditions of the lock and dams, and then do a follow-up report afterwards.

- Can you say the strangest thing that you guys have spotted?

- We see several strange things from time to time.

One that really, that I recall, was that there was an area adjacent to the river.

The water appeared to be kind of impounded, and it was orange, a real bright orange.

And so we called that in.

And so Coast Guard contacted some local assets on the ground and discovered that they were, Department of Conservation was doing some kind of testing or something.

And so they knew about it, and they were doing this testing.

But that was really unusual to see this big body of orange water.

- Well, people are out by the river, probably not by towns at night, you probably see all sorts of, you probably see a bunch of naked people somewhere, don't you?

(Eric and Roberta laughing) - Well, we're not maybe flying that low.

(laughs) - How many of these missions have you done?

- Ooh, what?

- [Rob] I know the answer if you don't.

- Okay, is it on there?

- [Rob] Yeah.

- How many is it?

- 457.

- Okay.

- Does that sound about right?

- I think, yeah.

- Well- - Maybe a few more than that now, but- - Yeah, it might be.

I would have to go back and count up, but yeah.

If that's what's on the card, 'cause I... - The card never lies.

(all laughing) - That's right.

- Is it fun doing it together?

- It is fun, yeah.

- Yeah, I really enjoy it.

I don't know that I'll ever get tired of it, but I really enjoy it.

- It's a good way.

I mean, it kind of feels like we're serving our country.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Too, so.

- Well, I mean there's probably, I mean, you know, you said the people in water and stuff like that.

There's times when, you know, the eyes up above are invaluable.

- And that's why, yeah, that's why.

Of course we'll do, you know, routine patrols, but occasionally we've been called to go look for something.

There were some barges that got loose down below St. Louis.

And so, you know, I was called out to go search for them.

I picked up a Coast Guard active duty just south of St. Louis.

And we've flew over the river looking for these barges that had drifted away.

- Roberta, we met you out in San Francisco at the something soy- - Soy Connects.

- Soy Connects, yes.

You're involved with what, Illinois?

- I started on the Illinois Soybean Association, and now I serve on the American Soybean Association as one of the Illinois representatives, and also serve on USEC, which is the US Soy Export Council.

- [Rob] So what do they do?

- Well, ASA is the policy side.

And so there are boots on the ground in DC and working with government agencies.

They're also involved in funding that we receive from the government, which is changing rapidly right now.

And then USEC is, they're looking at developing markets around the world for the use of soybeans.

- Are you involved with the WISHH too?

- I am, yes.

- What's that?

- The World Initiative for Soy in Human Health.

And that is, they're looking at emerging markets, markets that could benefit from the soy protein, whether it be in the form of animal feed or human foods, worked into human foods.

And then as those markets develop, they'll be turned over to USEC to try and develop the trade and demand for US soy.

- So you guys, besides the farm, which obviously takes a lot of work in that, you're very free with your volunteering.

Why?

- Well, I think in a way, kind of almost think of 'em a little bit as hobbies.

But I think that as US farmers, we have a lot of blessings, and are able to succeed in our farming operation, and so it's important to try and help educate and share the knowledge that we have.

And for me it's a great way of learning too, from other experiences.

- There's a lot of folks who were dealt a much different hand than what we were.

And so it's just a way to help others, you know.

- Well, that's a good way to look at it, because, you know, I've been involved in those boards too, and I've also been busy on the farm, and it's like, oh, I can't do this tomorrow, 'cause I gotta go to a meeting or whatever.

It can be a drag on you.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So you guys have done what a lot of people have tried, is to get started farming on your own.

You guys have succeeded.

So if there is a younger person out there that wants to get involved in agriculture, like you guys, what advice would you give 'em?

- Good luck.

(laughs) (all laughing) No, I'm just kidding.

- Well, if they're starting with nothing, then I think it would probably be one way that could be successful, would be to have an off-farm job, and use that to kinda live on.

And then start within your means.

You know, the equipment that you can afford to buy, and then you just have to work your way up gradually if that's what a person wants to do.

Some might choose to always have off-farm job, and just, you know, farm kind of on the side, and that works out as well.

And then you can look at the different kinds of crops.

If you're gonna farm a small acreage, and that's your goal, then there are high-value crops.

You know- - Like poppies.

- Pardon me?

- Like poppies.

- Like poppies.

I would not suggest that here in the US.

But go to Afghanistan, and you'd fit right in.

We grew popcorn for a few years.

We grew pumpkins.

So yeah, (laughs) pumpkins are very labor intensive.

So anyway, there's ways to do it, but you've gotta generate income.

And so if you're gonna have a small acreage, you've gotta have a high-value crop, and then you can transition if you choose to, to larger acreage and then more of a volume type production, like grain, for example.

- What do you think, Roberta, as far as like advice for the youngins?

- Well our daughter and son-in-law are farming with us now.

And it's not easy for young people to buy land.

I mean, the cost of land, and as we've purchased land through the years, we've always said it was, we paid more than we should have.

But we've been able to use that to help... - I will buy every one of your acres for what you paid for it.

I don't even know what it is.

(Eric and Roberta laughing) - Right, I don't know that we'd sell it at that, you know.

But you know, I think sometimes you learn as you go, and we certainly have weathered some tough times.

But I think Eric's suggestion, or comment about, you know, you kind of take it, take it slow.

Don't go in too fast on a situation, but.

- So the daughter and son-in-law came back.

- Yeah.

- Was that a goal or did it just happen?

- Well, I think they wanted to, and so yeah, we just tried to make it work out.

And it did.

It worked out all right.

- Brookside.

What's with the name?

- So when Dad and I farmed together, he coined that name for the operation, but he stopped using it.

So I started, (laughs) so I started using it, 'cause I like the sound of it.

(laughs) - [Rob] So your farm is not by a brook?

- Well actually it was at that time, the one that we started, that we farmed together.

And there are some brooks that run through it.

Yeah, there's a creek.

So yeah, it's still kind of somewhat, somewhat fits.

- You guys go to the Ozarks?

Is that for fun?

- That's for fun, yeah.

All of our kids and our grandkids enjoy swimming, and our son-in-law has a couple WaveRunners.

We don't have a boat, but we love swimming in the lake and, excuse me, just hanging out.

- I've seen that show, "Ozarks."

- I've not seen that yet.

- Yeah, so I know what you're doing down there.

(Eric and Roberta laugh) - I haven't seen the show, so I'm not sure where you're headed on that.

- [Rob] Lots of embezzling.

- [Eric] Oh, okay.

Well that.

- That's not us.

- [Rob] Clean and dirty money.

Yeah, we get it.

- When I was a kid, our family would go down to the Ozarks, you know, like, I was 10 or 11 or 12.

And we did that for a number of years with other family friends, and then kinda got away from it.

But then, I don't know, maybe 30 plus years ago, we resumed going down, and so.

- [Rob] It's gorgeous.

- Yeah, we have a good time down there.

- Yeah, do you get out on the WaveRunners?

- Occasionally, yeah.

(Rob laughs) - It's got more shoreline than the State of California.

Did you know that?

- I'm not surprised.

If you see it on a map, it's got a lot of shoreline.

- Well, Roberta and Eric Dolbeare, from Pleasant Hills, Illinois, from Brookside Farms, which now we know the history behind.

Do you guys have like a website, social media, anything like that?

- Well, I - Roberta's got- - I do Facebook posts.

I don't have a separate page for it.

I just do it on my individual page.

But they always start off Brookside Farms and it's- - She does a great job on that too, really.

You oughta look at that, because Roberta's perspective is really good, because she grew up in town, in the city.

And so she explains things in a way that a farmer who's farmed it all their life, wouldn't think to.

And it's good.

I get a lot of people commenting about that.

- Wish I'd have known that before the show was over, (Eric and Roberta laughing) but here we are.

(laughs) Roberta and Eric Dolbeare, thank you guys for coming in.

- Thank you.

- I know it was a drive.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for what you do for agriculture.

It does not get unnoticed on me, so appreciate it - You are welcome.

- very much.

- Well, thank you very much.

- Guys, thank you.

Everybody else, we'll catch ya next week.

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