(slow rock music) ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag".

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm a farmer.

I know all about farming.

I know every aspect of it.

That's not true.

I don't know anything about farming in a city.

I farm just outside of Bradford, Illinois, typical fields of what you would think of.

But to actually farm in Chicago, on the empty lots, To me, that's fascinating.

Well, luckily, today we have Steve Archer.

How're you doing, Steve?

- Outstanding.

Thank you.

- You're from Chicago.

- I am from Chicago.

Born and raised south-sider.

- And bred.

- And bred, yeah.

(Rob laughing) Right.

Don't tell my wife.

Yes, yes.

- And you did not grow up a farmer.

- I did not grow up a farmer.

I grew up hearing stories from my father about time that he spent on the farm when he was a young man.

And the story that probably stuck out the most to me was that he and his brother, his older brother by a year, had determined that all animals know how to swim, so they decided they were gonna test this theory with chickens in a rain barrel.

And he told me they got the beating of their life after the second chicken didn't make it.

- At least it was marinated.

- Yeah, right.

They were marinated.

They had to pluck the chickens and prepare 'em for dinner.

So they learned a valuable lesson.

- I guess I didn't.

I figured a chicken would float.

- They don't float.

- They don't float.

- According to my father, and I've never redid the experiment.

- [Rob] That's probably a good idea.

- Right.

- Well, tell me about that, because was it like a program where they went down and learned how to farm?

- So, in the past, in my history, the people who migrated north from the south in Chicago, mostly black folk, would send their children back to the farm and in that area, so that they would learn valuable skills.

And my father actually went to Waterville, so he actually was north some of the time.

And that's where my uncle's farm was.

And by the time I came around, there was no farm.

- [Rob] Okay.

Was it a program, or just what was done?

- No, it wasn't a program.

It was just what was done.

It was a way to connect the younger generations to the older generations when that was something that was desirable in society.

- So do you think the loss of farms was kind of why that stopped happening?

- Throughout the south, a lotta times, the person or persons who made the determining factor whether a farm got a loan and at what rates, helped in the decline of African American farmers in the United States.

They just didn't get as good rates.

And the margins are very small if you have a bad year.

- [Rob] Yeah.

That was a huge story that just kinda got swept under the rug.

- Yeah.

In a lot of circles, it did get swept under the rug, and the government is saying that they're attempting to make amends and assist people, but a lot of the programs are not easily accessible to most people.

- Yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to make up for being dumb.

(both laughing) - Right.

And we've broken that connection.

You know, when you have both parents going to work and the kids in daycare, you've broken the connection of knowledge.

So, whereas my mother's mother taught her about what plants were okay to eat outside, you know, finding purslane or something along those lines, we weren't necessarily taught that with the same amount of intensity.

And gardening is not something the kids did.

When the kids turned 14, they went to school.

So they don't know how anymore.

- So, when you were growing up, you didn't go to a farm?

But, I mean, did you get those lessons, I mean, from your dad?

- I got more of the lessons from my mom about what to eat and what not to eat, and from my dad, I got support.

You know, "Okay, I'll buy you these seeds," or, "I'll buy this stuff for you," but as far as knowledge, he said he didn't retain any, so.

- I look back on my life and I don't regret much, but I kind of think maybe I should have served in the military.

You did.

- I did.

I served in the United States Marine Corps.

I was very much like yourself, perhaps.

I didn't go into the Marine Corps until I was 26 years old, so I was an old man compared to the young 18-year olds, and I went in for a similar purpose.

I had felt that my father served, my brother served, grandparents had served, uncles had served, and I had missed out on this opportunity by going to school and so forth, and I felt a little bit of patriotism at that time, thinking more along the lines that our country always had our best interests at heart, and so, part of the reason I joined was for that.

- [Rob] In what year?

- In 1999.

I joined in '99.

- Oh, before.

Before 2011.

- Yes.

Before 2011.

Yeah.

- So, did they send you anywhere?

- Oh, yes.

I got to go to Iraq.

(Rob chuckling) Woo!

- "I got to go!

Got to go to Iraq!"

- Right!

Right.

There's a picture of me in "The Honolulu Times".

We were getting on the bus to go to the airport to head out to Iraq, and somebody snapped a picture of me, and they snapped a picture of me when I had this grin on my face, and I can remember thinking in that moment when they were snapping that picture, I didn't know they were taking that picture, but I remember smiling because I was thinking, my mom said, "There's no way both of my sons will end up in war."

My older brother was in the Gulf War, so he was in Iraq part one, and I got to go part two.

- Gotcha.

Okay.

Well, thank you for your service.

I remember, because when y'all were going in there, everybody was talking about how bleak it was gonna be.

That had to be terrifying.

- In the Marines, you spend three months training to respond to that kind of stress, and they train you to run towards noise, or violence, or disruption as opposed to running away from it.

So the training kind of takes hold, and it's not a foreign thought.

Before you go into the military, or before you start weapons training, or before you start some sort of martial arts training, people are often told, "Don't hit other people."

We have this we societal behavior structure.

That societal behavioral structure is broken down when you go through the indoctrination of military, and for some people, it is more stressful when it's over.

So that's sort of along the lines of the PTSD, is you compartmentalize the potential dangers and all the things that could go wrong to focus on the things that you actually have control over.

And then it's on the back end, when, all of a sudden, you know, that adrenaline is still there, but the need to act is gone, if that makes sense.

- Did that affect you?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- The going wasn't as bad.

It is the thinking about all the close calls.

You know, the bullet in the vehicle that you're riding in, and you didn't even hear anybody shooting at you guys, or the helicopter that went down when you were supposed to be on the helicopter the next day.

Was that your helicopter could have gone down the next day?

So IEDs, things along those lines.

When you're on a convoy and somebody else's convoy has had an incident before you or after you, you thank God that you had eight aunts praying for you on the back front.

So it sticks with you afterwards.

- Yeah.

As someone that has not been through military, I don't understand it.

I remember, we interviewed a guy one time, and his job was to look for the IEDs, right?

- Yes, yeah.

- And he said, "Fine.

I actually was fine over there."

When he got home, now when he sees something on the road, he has a panic attack.

- Yes.

Yes.

The studies say that the people who get PTSD are the people who kind of adapt to stressful situations better, but then your brain never disconnects from that stressful situation because it's become a survival method.

So not running over garbage on the street, you know, when you're 16, "Oh, I wanna hear if it pops or the glass breaks."

Maybe you might be one of those kids, but after you've been in a place where if you run something over the street, something may explode, you treat those things differently.

You don't drive the same route every day to the same place because you make yourself a soft target.

- [Rob] Yeah, yeah.

- Those those kind of things, and you work those things into your life and it lowers your stress level.

For me, knowing what my triggers are lowers my stress level.

- Well, us that weren't in the service, we were all terrified for you, so thank you for your service.

- Thank you.

- That was not a good time, so thank you.

Farming, agriculture.

- Yes.

- How'd you get the bug?

- Again, from a very young age, I just thought the idea of nurturing something from a seed to this big pumpkin was just like a little miracle, and after I got out of the military, dealing with PTSD, the doctor says, "Well, you know, you need something to take care of," right?

Because you're having difficulties with walking, this kind of stuff.

And he said, "What do you wanna do?"

And I said, "Well, you know, I raised chickens before, and I'd liked bees.

- [Rob] My dad did, too.

- Right, I need to know some more about chickens and bees, and so, I started down this journey after I had a loss of mobility in my lower legs due to a vehicle accident, and I had this opportunity to just go and learn about bees and to learn about all these other things.

And my kids were at Carmel Montessori Academy, which is a farm school in Warrenville, and they had horse and donkeys, and I was like, "You guys need more chickens."

- [Rob] What do you mean a farm school?

Up there?

- Yes.

So, it's a Montessori school.

- [Rob] Okay.

For the people at home, what does that mean?

- Basically, they're not a school teaching about farming, they're a school where the kids can experience farm life while do their other activities as well.

- Yeah.

- So part of their chores are going to feeding water to chickens, or taking Eeyore, the donkey, - [Rob] So you got a tail.

- Right.

- Yes, Eeyore has a tail.

And Eeyore does look mopey.

And we were able to get them a couple of Kunekune pigs.

- [Rob] Oh yeah.

The hairy ones.

- Yeah, the hairy ones from Zaylon Rotweilder in southern Illinois.

He's another veteran farmer.

- [Rob] Yeah.

If you ever do a TV show, you wanna know a hint?

- Oh.

- Is when you don't know something and you don't wanna look good, you always say, "For the people at home."

- Oh, for the people at home.

Right.

(both laugh) Do I have to drop my voice out?

For the people at home.

- It helps.

Yeah.

Makes 'em feel special.

- Right.

Yeah.

Right.

- So, I'm sorry, so your kids are there.

- So, right.

So my kids are there, and they don't have anybody actually working on the farm anymore because the founder of the school was from Ireland and she had a farm, but now she's in her seventies, she's not doing any farming.

And so, I took over, teaching the kids about farming and so forth.

- [Rob] Oh yeah.

You did it!

- Yes, so I did it, and we had all different kinds of projects working.

- [Rob] Had you ever taught before?

- I taught Montessori before.

- Okay.

- Just for three to six year olds and six to nine, and I taught a drug prevention education.

When I get bored, I have to learn a new thing.

- [Rob] What?

(both laughs) - The more I talk to you, it's like, "Oh, wow, we should have wrote that down."

- But yeah, so we did teach Montessori.

My wife and I had our own Montessori school, and we just had a lot of fun.

It was cheaper to have a Montessori school, 'cause Simon is 17 and the twins are 16.

The twin daughters, Ella and Maya.

So, at one point, we had three toddlers all at once.

- [Rob] Oh, mercy.

- And the amount of money it cost to send them to Montessori school, 'cause my wife's a big Montessorian, was more than it cost to open up a school.

(Rob chuckles) - Simple economics right there.

- So we opened up the school.

- So your wife is in on this?

- Yes.

- Yeah, where'd you meet her?

- We met in college, so, - Okay.

- I saw her at Rosary College, which is now Dominican University.

I saw her standing in the lobby, and she had on leather pants and a leather jacket.

(rob laughs) And so, I told her, I said, "You look like trouble," and we became fast friends.

We were both dating other people at the time, and it wasn't until almost 10 years later that we started dating.

- [Rob] Oh really?

- Yeah, so.

- [Rob] Okay.

That's fantastic.

- Yeah.

So, she was a good friend, and I probably told her way too many things, but she kept me anyway, so.

- Well, but yeah.

You told her, was that honest, and she's still, That's a little hint to the ladies out there.

If you wanna attract a good man, leather pants.

(both laughing) So, why do you think it's so important to teach kids?

I mean, right?

They're just supposed to learn reading, writing, arithmetic.

Why teach 'em all this, you know, common sense farm stuff?

- The natural human condition is not to take a 4-year-old and put 'em in a seat and say, "Sit here for eight hours and don't talk to your neighbor and don't interact."

For a human being to fully develop, they need to feed both their mind, their body, their soul, their spirit.

They need to fill all of these things, and only through interacting with nature can you fulfill some of those things.

So having children understand where their food comes from may make some kids more likely to be vegetarians or vegans, but it educates them overall on how the world works, right?

That circle that we are part of, and then children will stop thinking of themselves as outside of nature, and it's only when you're outside of nature when you can look at the decimation of insects that we're in right now.

It's an insect apocalypse, right?

- [Rob] The insect apocalypse.

- A insect apocalypse.

We're losing tons and tons of species and the amount of insects.

There's some that say it's over 70% since the seventies.

That's the insect population.

So if you went outside this year and you looked around, you might've noticed there were very few monarch butterflies.

- [Rob] Okay.

I guess I didn't notice.

- When I was a kid, we used to see the monarch migration.

Right?

There'd be hundreds, if not thousands of butterflies flying south to Mexico, and that's just not gonna happen this year.

Lightning bugs.

Right?

June, July used to be full of lightning bugs.

We don't have 'em anymore and part of that has to do with our disregard of what's going on in nature.

If more people were aware of the things that we're losing, they might speak up more.

- [Rob] Mmhm.

You know, there's a lot of farmers that are taking advantage of the government.

They're putting in, like, pollinator plants and that.

- Yes, yes.

- And my dad despised milkweeds.

I mean, like to the point where he would dream about how much he hated 'em, because at that time, they didn't have the chemistry to kill 'em.

- Right.

- And I miss my dad dearly, but part of me is like, "Maybe it's good he's not around when I'm actually planting milkweed plants."

(both laugh) - Milkweeds, but it smells so good, too.

In the springtime, the swamp milkweed, the flowers from it have a very heady, strong fragrance.

And the pods, when they're small, they're actually edible.

- [Rob] Oh, really?

- Yeah.

So, anybody can look up.

- [Rob] But that's the monarch thing, right?

The milkweed is.

- The milkweed is a plant that the monarchs use as a food source, nectar, pollen.

- Put their little, it's not a cocoon, but a chrysalis.

- They do chrysalis, but they don't need milkweed for the chrysalis.

- [Rob] Okay.

- The cats, the caterpillars, eat the milkweed so that it actually makes them poisonous, but the milkweed is poisonous because it's trying to kill off the caterpillars, and so, occasionally, a caterpillar, on a milkweed, will die, and the reason it's dying is because it doesn't have enough resistance to the poison.

- [Rob] Needs to learn to stop eating.

- Needs to learn to stop eating, but it's the thing that they prefer to eat, and mostly it's the only thing that they eat.

But because we've had wide swaths of it removed, they just didn't have a place to lay.

And even now in the city of Chicago, if something's over three inches tall, they'll send somebody out to mow somebody else's yard and send them a ticket.

- [Rob] Okay.

You're getting into something, - Sorry.

In the weeds.

- No, no, I know nothing about what goes on in Chicago.

- In the city, yeah.

- I live out on the farm, but - Pollinator gardens are important.

- These empty lots.

- Yeah.

- It seems like you could do whatever you want with 'em 'cause they're empty.

- You should be able to do whatever you want with them.

There are people called gorilla gardeners, and they basically will go out and find one of these vacant lots, and they'll plant trees, and they'll plant pollinator gardens, they'll make paths with wood chips, and if somebody in that neighborhood complains, - [Rob] To which, (chuckles) - Right, if somebody in the neighborhood complains, - Somebody in my neighborhood will complain.

- They're like, "Oh, look at them over there, growing those echinacea!

Hate echinacea!"

And there was a story of one farmer who had somebody come on and spread rock salt across their, - [Rob] Which kills everything.

- Which kills everything.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And one of the ladies from Home and Grown, and she works with the city, and sometimes the city will say, "Yeah, you have permission to do something," but when the politician changes, when the alderman changes, sometimes that agreement goes out the window and they'll come through and they'll just bulldoze everything over.

- How do they have that much time to police stuff like that?

Okay.

(Steve laughs) All right.

All right.

- Right!

So, supposition!

Supposition.

- When I was asking that question, - Right, supposition.

(both chuckling) - Would be that when one of the ways that you make money is through fines, then you create more fines.

- [Rob] Oh.

Gotcha.

- So they hire somebody, and that is that person's job, and I've met the one in our neighborhood, his job is to drive up and down the street and look for grass that's over five inches and then write them a ticket, and then that ticket goes to a city organization, and then they pay somebody to go out and mow it down.

- Hmm.

- And they send that person a ticket.

- I've got like, 20 parking tickets up in Chicago I've never paid.

- Yeah.

- Are they gonna come after me?

- Not down here, but they did change the law that they can go onto private property.

- [Rob] Oh!

- They can go into private lots, and they can even go into your garage to put a boot on your car so you can no longer just hide your car to prevent them from attempting to collect their pound of flesh.

- Well, I tell you what.

There's a lot of times it people will like, make fun of rural America, right?

And there's plenty to make fun of, but I like to take a chance to, you know, defend and say, the good people there, all the good things.

You know, Chicago's got a reputation of whatever, but I wanna give you an opportunity to talk about what's good there.

- So, I'm in Inglewood.

Inglewood is supposedly the murder capital of Chicago, and it's basically one little area in Inglewood where they have this huge park, and it's just got a lot of shady stuff that goes on in this park, which makes the rest of Inglewood, supposedly, a bad place.

- [Rob] Gotcha.

- But where I am, I tell people, they say, "Well, you don't have up a big fence."

I'm not building fences.

I'm trying to build community.

So if I wanna invite people in, I don't build, you know, a $10,000 structure to keep them out.

And someone will say, "Well, aren't you afraid somebody's gonna steal your chickens?"

Well, if they steal the chickens, they must have needed 'em more than me.

It's to our detriment when somebody says, "Well, I'm just going to take this thing," but the only way we change that is by educating children to understand and empathize.

Well, yeah.

He's been raising this chicken for six months so he can get eggs every day so he can sell them for cheap at the farmer's market.

He grows these greens, the different Swiss chard to give away, and sometimes, people just are jerks.

- (scoffs) Okay.

- But the city of Chicago is not all bad.

- I know it.

There's a ton great stuff up there.

I didn't do a very good job getting through my stuff, so, - Oh, sorry.

- You think I could talk you into doing another show?

- Absolutely.

- All right.

If people wanna find you, social media, would you rather have me tell them?

- Yes.

You tell them.

(Rob laughs) You tell them.

That way, my wife won't tell me I was wrong.

- On Instagram, It's @ArcherUrbanFarmsInitiative, and Facebook, it's Archer Urban Farming Initiative.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

And you're not on there much.

- My wife is in charge.

I send her the pictures, and she posts them.

- [Rob] Okay.

Well, that seems like a pretty good working.

- It works well, 'cause then I don't get yelled at.

(both laugh) So as long as I don't get yelled at for posting the wrong thing, I'm good.

- [Rob] Yeah.

You met my wife.

Woo.

- Yeah.

Wonderful lady.

- Until, (both laughing) - Well, I wanna thank you for making the trip down here.

I know it wasn't just right next door, but, you know, what we're trying to do here is not just teach the Peoria area of agriculture and other parts, but you know, it does go nationally, too, so I think a lot of people have a lot of questions about Chicago and growing stuff up there, and we didn't even get to the bees, we didn't even get to the award.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff we didn't get to, so I'm really glad that you're sticking around.

- Yeah, outstanding.

- So what are we gonna talk about next week?

- So, to talk about farming in the city of Chicago.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- The city of Chicago had the stockyards, so, - [Rob] Oh yeah.

- a lot of the stuff on their books dates back to those things.

So in the city of Chicago, you could have cows, horses, donkeys.

- [Rob] Oh yeah?

- Goats, chickens, which I have.

You can have roosters.

And the way they handle a lot of the complaints about it are normal ordinances, noise violations, smell violations if you don't clean up after yourself, if you don't make sure that your animals are safe so that nothing's killing them in the middle of the night.

Those sorts of things.

All of the soil in the city of Chicago is considered contaminated because, for years, the lead gas, so all of the soil has an excessive amount of lead in it.

- [Rob] So we got plenty to talk about.

- Right.

- Honestly, people, if you don't tune in next week, it's on you.

Alright Steve, thank you very much.

- My pleasure.

- Everybody else, we'll catch you next week.

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