(upbeat music) - And welcome to "A Shot Of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

I got a podcast which led into me getting on XM Radio, which led to me getting my first national television show which led to me sitting right here today.

But the show today is not about me.

It's about Greg Steele, from Dover, Illinois.

How are you doing Greg?

- Fantastic.

- When we first learned we were gonna be doing this show we said we wanted to talk locally with people on agriculture that have influenced agriculture.

Literally the first person that came to mind was you.

- Thank you very much.

- Yes.

You know what's fun is Greg gets awkward.

When I compliment him, he doesn't know how to handle it.

So, this is gonna be a lot of fun.

(Greg laughs) You look really good today.

- Thank you.

(Rob laughs) I had a $25 haircut just to show up.

- 25 bucks, holy cow!

(Rob laughs) All right.

Where is Dover, Illinois?

- Well, we're just North of Interstate 80 and North of Princeton about five miles out in the Prairie.

And it's a great, great place to be.

I'm the fourth generation farmer on the farm and had decided many, many decades ago to be a farmer.

And so I have the opportunity to run the farm.

- And you've lived there your whole life?

- Yes, I have.

- Okay.

All right.

Tell you, said you decided to be a farmer, tell me about that decision.

- Well, I was in the fourth grade and I, at that time I went to a two-room schoolhouse and there were about 30 to 35 students in the school, - Mmh-huh.

- And I was in fourth grade and it was in the spring of the year and I thought, you know, you need to make decision here about what you're gonna do as your career, what you're gonna do with your life.

And I was, assumed everybody else-- - At fourth grade!

- I just assumed everybody else in the room (Rob laughs) had made those decisions so I should get with it.

So, I spent about a week pondering (Rob laughs) and probably put more effort in school that week than any other week in my career.

And finally on Friday about two o'clock I said, "Well, I guess I'm gonna be a farmer."

- Okay.

- I've helped my dad and my grandpa was there a little bit and I enjoyed it.

And it's so different today than back then in the fifties, - Mmh-huh.

- but it was all right.

So, I made that decision and I stuck to it and I end up in the service and I explained to my father that I was gonna go to service and what was gonna take place.

And I said, when I get out of the service, I'm coming back to farm.

And he said, "Well you're pretty sure of yourself."

And then when, I enjoyed the service a great deal and then it came to a point that it was time to get out.

And I went, "Well, do I really wanna get out 'cause I really liked it."

- The service?

- The service.

- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay.

Because I know some stuff about you, you liked the service?

The time when were you in the service was a little sketchy.

- Yeah, It was.

I was in the service of 68 to 70.

I was in the army.

I was in the infantry and I was in Vietnam.

And I was a squad leader and a platoon Sergeant and I loved a lot of the way things were put together.

And it was, there was a lot of organization and I happened to be in a position to be part of that organization and a lot of responsibility for the people under me to see that we got home.

That was the whole objective.

- What were you?

General?

- No, I was an E-5 Sergeant.

- Okay.

- I became a platoon Sergeant.

Actually, eventually I became the executive officer of the platoon.

Probably the only platoon in the world that had an executive officer but our first Sergeant decided I should do that so, - Why?

- Well, there's some other issues that fit into play that we were lacking for some leadership.

- You're from Illinois, you knew how to bribe people.

Is that what it was?

- No, that was not it.

- No.

(Greg laughs) You probably didn't go very far there in Vietnam.

- No.

We were so far they had to pump light to us.

We were so far away.

(Rob laughs) But I did really enjoy it.

I enjoyed, making a plan and doing the plan.

And, but I said, when I got opportunity to leave, I said I'm gonna go home and farm.

And so that was in 1970.

- Okay.

Whoa, whoa.

You were over in Vietnam.

You were in situations where people were shooting at you and trying to kill you.

- Yes.

- But you talk about it like you really enjoyed like the organization.

Help me understand if someone's shooting at me, I'm not gonna say I enjoy the organization.

(laughs) - Well, I enjoyed our army, our government's effort, the army effort.

- Okay.

- I cannot speak for all of what was right or it was wrong.

- Mmh-huh.

- I can't speak for it.

But I also never had an ill feeling about the enemy because I believed that his government sent him to do a job.

- Yeah.

- And my government sent me to do a job and I totally accepted that responsibility.

And I met some people very early on that said, we need to work very hard to see that everybody gets home.

- Yeah.

- That was the final straw.

- Okay.

- Get home.

Now we didn't succeed in everybody, but we did most and life is a thread and sometimes the thread just get broken and we lost some people.

And, but I just really cared about it a lot.

- Tell me about this.

- Well, I wrote this down.

I really got this from the service.

- Yeah.

- And I said, "If you are not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space."

- Okay.

- And I believe that to be true and as I evaluate where we are in our country today, we've all lived a very challenging year and a half, and we've all lived on the edge.

And it's been very difficult as a farmer in the last year and a half, a lot of things haven't changed too much, but I didn't have to rely on the public to come and purchase my wares that I was selling.

- Mmh-huh.

- And I mean, there was so many things that I didn't have to face, but society is really faced with a lot of the trauma that they've gone through.

And so I've always lived by that code.

And as a farmer, I've definitely lived on the edge a few times.

- Mmh-huh.

- In fact, every spring when we plant the crop, we aren't sure that there'll be a crop and we aren't sure what the financial reward will be, if any.

And fortunately there has been rewards most of the time, but, we can't let that pressure overwhelm us.

I think we need to have a lot of faith in ourself, in our community, our country, our church.

We need to have respect for ourselves and our neighbors.

And so we can put a lot of things together that bring harmony to our life and respect and so on for our wife and our family.

- Mmh-huh.

- And so those are good things that we work with as we look at taking up too much space.

Are we focused on what's important?

And our country's been going through an awful lot in a year and a half.

And so, - And I think it's amazing.

I mean, this' something that you picked up in the late 60's and on the other side of the world, so prevalent today.

In fact, you brought up a prop for it.

- Yes.

- So, living on the edge and that's pretty clever.

Did you make this?

- No.

- No, no.

It was probably made in Vietnam.

(Rob and Greg laugh) - Probably.

- Yeah.

You have a really amazing outlook on things.

You always have, that's why I've always thought so highly of you.

Going over to Vietnam, I know you've been back.

- Yes.

- You actually went on a trip with my wife over there.

- That's right.

- What was that like?

- Well I was more nervous going back the second time than I was the first time.

- Why?

- Well, you know, you had issues it was very, very dangerous when I was there the first time.

- Yeah.

- Very dangerous.

And I was assigned to my company on the 27th of May, of 1969 and within an hour and a half a fellow came by and said, "Your company was just wiped out."

And I said, "Ah, don't believe the rumor."

We were in the middle of nowhere.

Don't believe this rumor.

It was 150 of us in this reception center.

Well, the next day we met, we went to the battalion headquarters and it was a fact.

And they'd started the day with 80 and they ended day with 30.

And so I was a Sergeant that I was sent out with 20 others to that company.

And they said, pick five men at your squad.

They knew nothing and I knew less.

And so we worked from that point on, and it was a challenge because we had to believe in each other and we had to work together.

And it was, but in our life at the farm, we have challenges, not death related often, I mean, there are some losses, but, - Mmh-huh.

- But there's challenges of how we make things happen or don't happen and, so it's important that we have a focus and a plan.

- All right.

Let's transition over to the farming, right?

Because you made a decision in fourth grade.

When I think about you, I think about someone that is the community comes to mind, because whenever there was something to do, like cooking pork chops at homestead festival in Princeton, I mean, you were always there, not just a flipping burgers, you were always instrumental in helping the community get along in helping everything.

Your dad was very famous.

Your dad taught a lot in leadership of community in that.

And do you think that's why that transitioned over to you or what's your thoughts on that?

- Well, I felt my dad, his life was separate from mine.

I mean, I could watch some things happen, but we didn't discuss it because that was his life.

And my responsibility was to run the family farm and we didn't discuss what he did.

There were reasons they didn't ever want anything to come out of my mouth that had to do with his job.

And so, he didn't discuss it with me or anybody in our family, including my mother, which was important.

But I felt that I was with some really wonderful people and the poor producers in our county and I believed in that organization.

And we worked hard to promote the product that we were producing.

And I felt proud of the fact that we were doing that for many, many years.

So, I wanted to promote the product that we worked hard to produce.

And it's kinda gone through its course.

There's probably gonna try it again this year, but you know, there's isn't so fewer hands anymore the industry.

And so, it's changed, but most everything else is changed.

- It's sad.

I mean, it used to be the mortgage lifter.

Pork producers used to be such a big, you remember that night we closed it down at a bar?

- Yeah.

(Rob and Greg laugh) There were a lot of (mumbles) - And it's sad to think.

I mean, people in that room are no longer with us, but it's in how much it's changed.

Let me ask you this, I mean, you've been a farmer your whole life, you raised hogs for a large part of that.

Would you do the hogs again?

If you went back and talked to fourth grade Greg, would you tell him, "Hey, don't do hogs."

- Things change in our world in our industry of agriculture so much.

And you have to be flexible enough to see where you fit in and how it works.

I loved raising hogs.

I had a great amount of pride when I put a pig on a truck and he was leaving my farm.

I took a lot of pride in it.

But when we got down to the fact that there wasn't any financial reward and we got lucky and got out of the business before it fell apart.

I had a feeling that we need to get out and I recommended to our family and then we made the decision and I won't say everybody was a thousand percent sold on it, but within nine months it was a disaster, a hog for 4 cents a pound and we were-- - 1998.

- We weren't a part of it.

- That was the first group of hogs I owned.

- Yeah.

Welcome to the world.

- Timing is everything isn't it?

- And it, you know, I remember they were offering me 50-$55 for a pig and I said, "No I'll wait another week I think there'll be 60."

And they were, but you don't do that very often.

It's the same way you're selling corn and beans.

Need to know what our cost is and you need to know what kind of margin we're looking for.

And that's extremely important that we have some of that together.

It changes, and you know, we're looking at some other changes into grain farms in the next few years with the government theories on what we should be doing.

- Yeah.

Tell me about this.

- Well, I just wanted to show this is John Deere, a replica of it him working in his shop in north of Dixon, Illinois.

And he was trying to make the first plow.

And John Deere came from out east, I think, Pennsylvania and came to Grand Detour and started building his stuff there.

And he got lucky and on the plow and found some metals that came off a big Saw and was able to make it till the soil and not stick to the metal because it was already shined up from cutting the wood.

And so there aren't many plows left in the field today, but he saw a need and went it to try to make it work.

And he was at Grand Detour and of course their rocker was there.

And a lot of things could be shipped out on the water and end up in Moline, Illinois which eventually where he ended up.

But he struggled hardly hard there.

And then every company we've seen them come and go in our lifetime even.

But if you were lucky enough to be on the cutting edge to make things work, you succeeded.

If you'd weren't, then it probably didn't work out too well for you.

- Is this drive still alive in the country?

- Yes.

I think it is because there's, I'll let our young people know that you gotta be committed to succeed.

Without the commitment about everything, you probably won't succeed.

You just can't, lackadaisically put effort into it.

You've got to put a lot of effort into it and plan.

I enjoy that part a lot.

I like to plan.

I have plots corn plots every year and work a lot off of that.

We've already been in the fields to take stand counts, to see where we saw, how we sew.

We've developed or worked on a different planner for this year that seems to have made some improvements.

We don't know until October, for sure.

But right now things look very positive and we're in a lucky area.

- Okay.

I'm gonna ask you a question and I'm gonna ask you that you don't backhand me for asking this, right?

But you're more seasoned.

You're maybe not at a pick, I'm trying to say this nicely.

(Greg laughs) Why does it matter to you to keep improving, like to do the planner and stuff instead of just writing out the rest of it?

- Well, I'm very challenged at trying to come up with a better way and to succeed I mean, my personal goal was to have a 300 bushel crop on my farm.

We haven't got there yet.

We're, and I'm not saying we're real close.

- Just put your thumb on the scale.

- Yeah, Well, - Based on (mumbles) not that hard.

(both laugh) - But so, it's gotta be economical to do it.

You just can't pour fertilizer on it and whatever else you think you should do, if it's not economical, there's no reason to discuss it.

So, And Merlot Brittney controls most of it, 'cause we can put it in, we can do this, but he's gonna determine whether you get an inch rain or a six inch rain, or like this week, they had 12 inch rains down in Louisiana, and we just don't need to have problems.

So, - Yeah.

- I'm very driven.

Like I was driven with the pigs to find the best genetics and produce a really good pig.

And then obviously we got paid grade and yield.

It was very important for me to be able to sort the pigs, mark the pigs that were gonna be on a truck that were gonna return the best return to our farm.

And when I contract Fred for some guidance and I still was responsible to pick them, and he said, "Just keep doing it, you're doing a great job for us."

So, I was lucky about that part.

I'm not saying I did a great job at everything, but I did a great job.

- Well, say you got some punk kid, right?

Just out of college, right?

Punk kid and he comes up to you and says, "Mr. Steel, got any advice from me, I wanna get into farming."

- Oh, well, I there's great opportunity, but you're gonna have to put a roadmap together on how you're gonna do this.

Not only financially, but if you're married, you're gonna have to have a spouse that's willing to commit because there's gonna be things that she's gonna do without to get there.

- Yeah.

You got a good one.

- Oh, yes.

I sure did.

- How'd you do that?

- I got lucky, I got really lucky.

(both laugh) Very fortunate.

She came from a farm and she had some understanding and she's been a strong supporter and we talk about things a lot about we're making changes, commitments.

She's she's aware.

There is no surprises at our table.

- It doesn't always go over the best.

- No.

- It's like, "Honey, why is there a different Combine in our yard?"

I don't know.

(both laugh) - Yeah.

There's some shiny paint.

"What do you mean you think you need a $70,000 Bean Head?"

- Let me ask you this, I asked you about the hogs, right?

What about farming?

If you had to do it all over again, do this, or go do some other career, would you do it all over?

- Yeah, What I know of, what I know today.

Yes.

Because I get to make a lot of decisions.

I obviously, when I was with my parents and we had our family corporation, we made most decisions together.

And, but when my parents passed away and I have the farm, responsibility for the farming and the rest of the family is rewarded by its return.

I'm, very happy with what I do.

And I really enjoy the soil and I enjoy good quality corn and beans that have great test weight in it.

And that's what's important to me.

- Yeah.

That's how you get paid.

- When I produce a product, I like the joy of taking it to the market, symbolically, I like to put that pig on the market.

I like to take my corn to the market and I really like taking it to the Ethanol Plant 'cause they're the end-user and they really care if I'm bringing them something.

When you take it to the River Terminal, they really don't care.

- No.

( Greg mumbles) - They mix garbage with it and send it on a barge and our consumer, we lose that vote and it's disappointing.

- How old were you when your dad passed?

- Oh, I was 68 probably.

And he was 96, - Okay, well 68 years old, right?

You should have life figured out.

I know when my dad passed, I was younger, but I couldn't believe because I had been farming on my own.

I couldn't believe how much I missed actually asking him some questions.

It's like, I remember the first spring after he died, I planted and we got a Gully Washer and I'm like, I don't know.

I mean, maybe we should just rip it up and restart.

And I'm like, "What do you think dad?"

And he wasn't there.

At 68, was it the same?

- He and I worked very close together and it came to a point he said, "You don't need to keep asking me, you're doing a better job than I was than I ever did.

So just do what's right and I respect that."

And then we would market the grain, I mean, I had some, he had some, the corporation had some and he finally said, "If you think it's the thing to do, do it."

- That's the worst.

That's what my mom does to me.

She's like, "You market the grade."

I hate that because if I make a mistake on my own, that's fine, if I make a mistake with hers, oh, that's sticks.

- We have to live with it.

But, I got a lot of corn sold this year for under $4.

- Yeah.

You're not alone.

(both laugh) - And I just say, there it is.

- Because by the time they are serious, it might be three bucks.

- Yeah, that's right.

Who knows what's happening.

That's part of the living on the edge.

- Mmh-huh.

- Knowing what to do and we kinda try to put some flow into it and not go too far, I mean I've gone a long ways in selling stuff ahead.

I didn't have any been sold ahead so they're all right but I had a lot of corn sold ahead and we've tried to sell a little bit more, but I can't sell too much.

- It's a frustrating part that maybe people outside of agriculture don't get to see - Yeah.

- Is the marketing side of it.

Because right now everybody's like, "Oh, $7 corn, you guys are making a ton of money where I'm like, "Well, that's not exactly what we're getting."

- No.

And our inputs will be a lot higher this fall.

And that will be, - You think?

(laughs) - I guarantee it.

I don't think, I guarantee it.

You know, we just have to, I'm very engaged in my business and I enjoy it a lot.

And not that I don't enjoy going away and doing some other things, but I really try to be engaged every day with Ag programs and Ag information in the markets every day, several times a day and try to know where we're going, what's going on.

And so, I am not sitting on the sideline watching I'm trying to be actively a part of.

- That's one thing about you, is the way that you encourage other people.

I mean, if there's one thing that people are gonna say about you is that, boy he did all he could to try to make the rest of agriculture a better place.

- I hope so.

That has to be the goal.

The part of the reward is that you stand up for where we are, who we are and say, here it is.

I don't always win.

- Not everybody thinks that, everybody thinks, I mean, hey, I'm gonna worry about my farm and really not look outside the fence rows.

You don't ever seem to have that attitude.

- Well, I've grew up thinking that a lot of farmers just looked at the end of their road as far as they needed to go and I felt it's a lot bigger world than that.

And we needed to really be involved deeper than that.

I don't, I have too much respect for the government and what they tell us.

So, I think we have to do this on our own and find some independent sources that can give some insight.

- Going first full circle, I mean, do you think your time over in Vietnam helped shape that opinion?

- Yes.

Without a question there.

I mean, there was, that was a terrible time in our country.

There was a lot of resentment about a lot of things.

Not totally wrong, but government just has a very... - D, you know what?

it's, we're running out of time and this is probably a good time too.

(both laugh) Once we get going on government, yeah, we're gonna need an hour long show, Greg Steele.

I tell you what, I truly enjoy talking with you.

You have made agriculture better and there's not a whole lot of people that I can say that.

So, I thank you for everything that you do.

It's amazing.

So everybody else we'll catch you next week.

(upbeat music)