(uptempo guitar music) (uptempo guitar music fades) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

Agriculture has changed unbelievably in the past 40 years, and today we're gonna get a firsthand account.

We're gonna be talking with Dave Bishop from Atlanta, Illinois.

How you doin', Dave?

- Doing good.

Thanks, Rob.

- Yeah, you put in 40 crops.

- I did.

- That's unbelievable.

- Well, you don't have to make me feel any worse, you know... (Rob and Dave laughing) Okay, I'm- - Just... (laughs) Did you grow up on a farm?

- Yes.

- [Rob] Okay.

- I grew up on a farm not far from Peoria, actually.

- Not the farm in Atlanta?

- No, no.

I moved there back in 1979.

Started farming there.

At that time, my family farm had other members of the family on it, so I didn't have a chance to go there.

And so I had an opportunity to go and farm near Atlanta.

And so, I did.

- How'd that come about?

- Uh, it just was one of those things where this opportunity presented itself, and I wanted to farm.

I had a short career after college as a commercial pilot and flight instructor here in Peoria.

- [Rob] Oh, really?

- And...

It was a very fun job.

But I did eventually discover that you can actually have too much fun.

And I thought, you know, you're gonna have to do more with your life than fly around in airplanes and- - Oh.

I had a college professor tell me once, "If you wanna fly with the eagles during the day, you can't fly with the owls at night."

- Kinda, very true, yes.

- Is that what you're talking about?

- I think so, yes.

(Rob laughs) - What were you flying?

Like just propeller?

- Yeah.

Small airplanes.

- Nice.

- Mhm.

- So, was this an opportunity... Did you buy this farm?

Or was it a place you started working at?

- No, I got married, and my wife's family operated this farm.

- [Rob] Gotcha.

- And so I had a chance to get started there.

And once I got started, if you'll recall your history, this was about the time that President Jimmy Carter embargoed grain to the Soviet Union.

And it collapsed the farm economy.

And all of a sudden, there were farms to rent, machinery was dirt sheep.

There was a farm sale every day of the year, one year in the early '80s.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And so, for me, it was perfect.

There was suddenly land everywhere, and machinery was cheap.

That's how I got started.

- Mhm.

But it didn't turn around right away.

Were those first few years, were they kind of rough?

- Yes.

The first few years were quite rough, as probably it is with any business getting started.

And there was a lot of chaos in the farm environment because of this embargo.

And I come after...

I was a junior in college when Earl Butz issued his famous, "Get big, or get out!"

This was 1971.

And so that started changes.

Everyone was trying to get bigger.

And to do, that you borrowed a lot of money.

And then all of a sudden, this embargo just dropped the price of grain to next to nothing, and people were caught flat-footed.

They had a lot of money borrowed and- - Well, good thing they had low interest.

(Dave laughs) - Low interest.

(Rob chuckles) You know, I paid... 24%.

- [Rob] Oh my gosh!

- On operating loan one year in the... And in the 1980s, operating loans ran from 15 to 24% interest.

- And you were at the high end.

- Congrats.

- And I remember one year at 24%, and that will get your attention.

- [Rob] That's worse than a credit card!

- Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I know.

Interest rates were a nightmare.

- Yeah.

And people had borrowed a lot of money to get started in this new "get big or get out" farm economy.

And when she collapsed, it really collapsed.

- What were you raising?

- Well, I started out just trying to do what everyone else was doing, which was corn and soybeans.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And that kinda went along sort of okay, until 1988, which was a big- - [Rob] Drought year.

- Drought year.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And it was the year that a scientist named James Hansen told Congress that human activity is creating something he called climate change.

- [Rob] Oh.

- That's the first time anyone ever heard of that term.

- [Rob] James Hansen.

- James Hansen.

- Okay.

- And we didn't have the slightest idea what that meant at that point in time, but he was one of the few people that seen this coming.

- You listened to him?

- You know, I was like everyone else, I heard of what he said, but you know, I didn't really understand what it meant.

- Did that change the way that you farmed?

- Yes.

Our motivations were mostly economic, unfortunately, since in 1988, crop insurance covered wind and hail.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- Well, it didn't rain from the 1st of April till the 1st of November.

So, wind and hail was not exactly an issue.

- Probably praying for a hail storm.

- We were praying, yeah.

(Rob laughs) Anything.

But we had no crop.

And the corn produced a stalk, but didn't even try to put an ear on.

- [Rob] Mm.

- Soybeans got about six inches tall.

- [Rob] Mm.

- And that was pretty much it.

And I remember that fall, sitting in the banker's office with some depressed looking neighbors of mine, who were pretty much in the same boat.

And the banker saying, "Well, did you get a crop?"

"No."

"You got any money."

"No."

Long, awkward pause.

"Well," he said, "I guess then you might as well just keep farming."

He had no other way to get his investment back.

(Rob laughs) And so I left with last year's note, and next year's note at ridiculously high interest rates.

And when I got home I thought, "Well, I am not going to keep doing the same thing and hope for different results.

I'm going to change the way I operate."

- [Rob] Okay.

- And that's when we brought diversity back to the farm.

- All right.

Is that when you went organic?

- Well, we...

I guess started that way unintentionally.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- We were actually motivated mostly by economics.

"How do I prevent something like this from happening?"

Well, I remember my grandfather once saying, "You know..." And he had a dairy farm.

He said, "Well, a hailstorm might knock down the corn, but it won't kill the cows.

And so we'll take that cornfield, and we'll make it a forage crop."

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And I thought, well, it wasn't a loss, right?

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And so we started raising, we started bringing cows back in.

Ultimately, we brought poultry and hogs back to the farm.

- [Rob] How did you know how to raise them though?

This was before YouTube.

- Oh, yeah, as a child, we had all those things.

- Yeah, but that's different than like production, isn't it?

(Dave sighs) - I mean, I didn't try to set up a big confinement, feeding operation.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- We tried to figure out, how do we use animals and plants together on the land.?

An example... We had wheat.

We introduced small grains, mostly wheat.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- Okay, so we frost seeded a cover crop, usually red clover, into the wheat.

The wheat was harvested in July.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And then we had this cover crop.

So, we immediately put the cattle on that field.

- Mhm.

- So now, you had a field which raised a crop of grain and a crop of beef.

We direct marketed that beef.

And we were able to add about $500 an acre to the value of that wheat crop.

- Whoa, whoa.

When did you start direct marketing to beef?

Like, what timeframe?

'90s?

- Yeah, I would say it was in the '90s.

- It was before It was cool to do.

- It was before it was cool to do, but there were some people interested in this.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- You just had to figure out how to find them.

It wasn't as easy as it is today to do that.

- No, you get on Instagram now.

What'd you have to do?

Find hippies and stuff that wants your beef?

(Dave laughs) - I think it was mostly a word to mouth, you know?

Kind of door to door.

But there were people out there who were interested, and we found very quickly that you could get quite a premium.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- For that.

For example, even then, there was a premium for grass "finished".

Or in other words, an animal finished with no grain.

A cow finished with no grain.

- Really?

I didn't think that became hip until later.

- It grew a lot later.

But there was, way back then, an initial interest in that.

- Okay.

- And since feeding these cows on red clover, they would gain something like three pounds a day.

And that put a nice, well-marbled finish on 'em.

And so you found all of a sudden, not only did you have additional income in a field of grain, but you had a unique product that consumers wanted to buy.

- [Rob] You could upsell.

- You could upsell.

- Yeah.

- And so, that became the focus of the farm.

How do we... How do we use diversity?

- That's just crazy talk right there.

- You know- - Corn, soybeans, that's what we do here.

- Well, if that's what you wanna do, that's fine.

I mean, I don't tell people how they should farm.

(Rob and Dave laughing) - I bet you there were a few that wanted to tell you that you were doing it wrong.

- There were a few people who looked at me askew from time to time.

Yes, that's very true.

(Rob laughs) But the nice thing about living in the country is that all the neighbors aren't that close.

- Yeah, it is wonderful.

- And the irony of that is, by the time 2010 and 2020 came around, there was a few of those same folks were interested in what we were doing.

- Yeah.

By then, it became much more mainstream.

People had basically looked at farms like yours, and go, "Hey, I'm not making it this way, but this guy's doing okay."

- Well, you know, I hate to admit it, but I can remember when all farms were small, diversified and mostly organic as a kid.

Pesticides and commercial chemical fertilizers was just the new thing getting started.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And I can remember a conversation, I was just a little kid.

My dad was the World War II generation, and they were all gung-ho for the new "this is the future" chemical fertilizers, pesticides, "This is where we're going."

And talking to my grandfather, and all of a sudden, I remember my grandfather say, "Why would you think you could put poison on your food and not poison yourself?"

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And I don't know why as a little kid, I remembered that.

But that kinda haunted me.

Why would you think that?

- So, what you did, I mean, you say it was economic, but is there a little bit of... "This is the way I should be farming."

That drove it too?

- Yes, I think that it would be...

It wouldn't be fair to say that wasn't involved in it at all.

I mean, economics was survival.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Right?

But once we get past that, once we create these ways to address that issue, I found a higher degree of comfort there.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Than I was before.

- You know, we've interviewed a lot of people that have done what you've done, whether you go organic or more natural, or regenerative or whatever.

And then there are some, right, that feel like that should be all of agriculture.

And I never understood that.

Because if I had what you had, the last thing I would want is more competition.

(Dave and Rob laughing) - Believe me, there is plenty of room for competition.

When you look at the demand for food products, around a city the size of Peoria, for example.

There's a lot of opportunity out there.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And, you know, let's take advantage of this to the greatest extent possible.

Let's look for ways to keep the wealth we create from the land in the community.

- Okay.

I want to talk about that.

- Okay.

- Does that correlate with what you're doing with the U of I?

- Yes, very much so.

This is an attempt by a major university to look into ways that we can create, I guess, local food systems.

Templates for local food systems.

What does that mean?

What does that look like?

- [Rob] I don't know.

- Well, let's imagine you were flying over Peoria at 30,000 feet.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And you're looking down.

What would you see if Peoria fed itself?

- Like, not bringing in food from the country?

- Well, producing everything that it can in this area, which is most of what we eat on a daily basis.

So for example, you might look down and see, here's Peoria.

And right around the outside of Peoria is a ring of small farms.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And they're producing fruits and vegetables, maybe some of the meats, eggs, things like that, that are then moved into Peoria.

Very short, very few food miles.

All right?

And then let's say that you see another much larger ring around that, maybe 10,000, 20,000 acres in size.

And that's producing grains, more meats, and maybe a product like industrial hemp, which can be- - [Rob] Which is not pot.

- No, no, no.

Nothing to do with pot whatsoever.

- Calm down, folks.

(Dave laughs) - There's some 25,000 industrial uses for hemp.

And that- - Is that all?

(Rob laughs) - Well, probably more than that.

And that hemp then is being brought into Peoria and processed, and made into biodegradable plastic bottles, paper cartons, construction materials.

There's all kinds of things you can do.

The point is, all the value in this land around Peoria is coming into Peoria, Peoria's value adding to it.

And if anything is shipped out of town, it's shipped out as a consumer ready product.

Not a raw material.

And so, we use the assets that we have from the land to keep that wealth in our community, rather than exporting it out as raw materials, which is what we're doing to a large extent right now.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And so this is what I think is the greatest opportunity we have in the future, for our communities, for our agriculture, and for all of us.

Is to move toward localizing our food systems.

- Okay.

Let me play a little bit of devil's advocate.

Right?

- Okay.

- So, the system we have now, right?

Corn and soybeans.

Let's, corn.

We send it to the ethanol plants, they make ethanol, they send the DDGs to Texas to the feed yards, which are massive.

And they are producing beef at a very small cost of production.

And then that beef is being processed offsite, and then being sent back to Peoria.

Economically, I'm gonna it's gotta be cheaper.

But I live in a town called Bradford, Illinois, which I remember used to have a grocery store, used to have a car dealership, used to have this, that, and the other.

We got a Casey's, and it's not even that good anymore.

(Dave chuckles) So, yes, I can get my hamburger cheaper on the way we're doing it, but is it costing me in Bradford?

- Let's talk about the high cost of cheap.

- [Rob] Okay.

(Rob laughs) - Okay, yeah.

We can produce that product maybe a little cheaper, but we have exported all the wealth to do that outta this community, and so now we're bringing it back and selling it to you, but we've taken away your source of income, essentially.

If you look all around rural America, I don't care where you go, you're going to see small towns, rural communities that are just a shell of what they were maybe 40 years ago.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- 'Cause I remember 40 years ago.

(Rob chuckles) And boy, small towns were dynamic places.

You know, there were farms everywhere, farmers.

We had a rural community.

We helped each other.

We, you know, we went to church together, we helped each other at harvest, we did all kinds of work together.

We had community.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And all that just disappeared.

- Okay.

I like what you're saying.

How do we go about this?

- Well, that's a lot simpler than it sounds.

It sounds like a simple concept, but it's not.

And that's why the University of Illinois is working on this project.

And it's so that we can figure out how to do it.

How exactly do you do that?

If you're gonna ask a farmer around Peoria right now, "Hey, would you be interested in growing 80 acres of green beans?"

Well, that's doable.

Nechanize, you can do that.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- But where do I take it and what's the price?

Well, until you can answer that question, no farmer's gonna grow 80 acres of green beans.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- So we've got to set up this receiving, processing, storage, distribution center, sometimes called food hubs.

Okay?

And then we're gonna have to just sit on this thing for a couple years, until farmers decide, "Okay, I'll take a chance.

'Cause you've guaranteed me I can get this amount for the crop, and I know where to take it, and it's gonna take another year to grow it."

So somehow or another, this entity has to sit there all ready to go with no income.

That's a tough sell.

- Yeah.

Well... - But how do you do it?

How else do you do it?

I mean, it's... - I don't... (Dave laughs) That's why smart people like you gotta figure this out.

- I was hoping you would say, "Yeah, here, I've got a plan."

(Rob chuckles) It would be good for at least one more session, wouldn't it?

(Rob laughs) - I am the worst at wanting to not change.

Right?

(Dave laughs) I'm very comfortable growing corn and soybeans.

- Okay, that's fine.

- I know how to do it.

I'm good at it.

And, you know, I can change... Oh, I'll change the tillage practice and this.

But the thought of growing another crop, and having to figure out how to market that crop, I just...

If farming was my only thing, maybe I could do that.

But like most farmers out there, I've got a different job.

- Okay.

- Fix that.

(Dave chuckles) - Well, that's what we were talking about.

You...

I'm not even gonna ask you as a farmer to grow this crop of green beans, if I can't tell you where to take it, and I can't tell you what the price is gonna be.

No one would do that.

But...

If there were a place to take it, and there was a profitable price, wouldn't that tempt you to at least give it a try?

- Yeah.

We interview a lot of people on "Ag", and I've challenged my wife to find first generation farmers, and she has no problem finding them.

It's a reoccurring theme, almost to the point where like, "Oh, another first generation."

They buy a farm, they get on YouTube, they learn how to raise something, and then they show that on another YouTube channel, or Instagram or whatever, and then they have people that are like, "Oh my gosh, I wanna buy that particular chicken from that particular person."

And they aren't charging what Tyson is charging.

They're upcharging, and they're...

It's not just a bunch of hippies out in the community, these people are making money.

- Right.

- And, you know, I think there's something in all of us, that we want to support those around us.

We want our friends and neighbors to succeed.

And if it costs a little bit more to do that, isn't that a good investment?

'Cause that money that I spent, that additional money, is staying right here in this community.

And it's circulating probably what, seven times in the community?

So, it's making a difference.

And if I care at all about what I eat in my community, it seems like a pretty good investment.

- What are you finding when you're looking into this?

Do people care about the small communities?

- We're finding more and more all the time that do.

And I think younger generation has different ideas about how they wanna live, what they wanna support.

Many, many people want to buy food that's been raised in a manner that they can...

In a manner that's acceptable to them.

Let me put it that way.

And so they're willing to pay for this.

So I think there is a very, very bright future for localizing agriculture, from a variety of different reasons.

- Why do you do this?

You put in your 40 crops.

(Dave laughs) I mean, you did.

You worked your tail off.

I mean, and now, you're supposed to be retired, and enjoying retirement, and I don't know, shuffleboard, or at a golf course or something.

Why do you do this?

'Cause it's gotta take a lot of your time.

- I think it's worth doing.

I think it's worth doing.

You know, when you get to be my age, you wanna spend your time doing something that mattered, if you can.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And I think this matters matters.

Matters to me, anyway.

- Yeah.

Your farm is still in production.

You got what?

Your son?

- My oldest son and his wife have taken over production there.

So, I still get the farm.

I see the farm, you know.

Retirement, on the farm, is this process where you work from a paying job, and you move to a unpaying job, but you're still doing the same amount of work.

(Rob laughs) Just so you know, if you're thinking about retiring.

- Most people say, "I don't know how I ever had time to be retired."

Right?

You're busier in retirement than you were at your job.

- But you can't just sit there and stare at the wall, so you have to do something.

- Okay.

Are you enjoying this still?

- I am.

- Are ya?

- I am enjoying it, you know?

I get to talk to people, I get to share these ideas, and there are people who are now receptive to this.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And what could be a better legacy than thinking that what you did for 40 years of your life still matters.

- Do you think people would've been this receptive in the '90s?

(Dave sighs) - Probably not.

- Yeah.

Does that make you feel good?

Because there had to be times where you probably, you know, scratching your head going, "My gosh, this is a lot of work."

- There were many times.

(Dave chuckles) - The reason that you're respected now is because you walked the walk.

- You know, during those times, and I'm thinking back in the '80s, you know, you wondered sometimes, "Am I crazy?"

Like, you know, "Am I really crazy?"

You know, "Does this really matter?

Am I wasting my time?"

And you don't know the answer to that at that point.

But you do what you feel is right.

And thankfully, I did.

- Mhm.

Well, I mean, to have a farm survive for 40 years is no small feat.

And I think people do get caught up way too much like, "If I'm gonna do this, I've gotta be farming 5,000 acres, because that's the only way you can make it, raising corn and soybeans."

A lot of people don't think the way that you did.

- Well, I mean, many of my neighbors chose to get bigger, and that's fine.

That was their choice.

I chose to get different.

- [Rob] Mhm.

- And you know, it's one of those choices we get to make.

It worked for me.

- You've done some teaching at Heartland College, right?

- Yes.

- The kids, the punks, are they receptive?

- Very much so.

You're seeing more and more young people who are interested in agriculture, are looking at what are the alternatives to the monocultural system.

- Do you know how to speak their language?

(Dave and Rob laughing) - Well, I guess.

I don't know.

That's a good question.

I just rattle on about my experiences in life and what they've been, and say to these young people, "Look, there is opportunity out there."

There really is.

The one thing that is for certain is, people are not gonna stop eating.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- All right?

Now it doesn't mean that you will be correct in how you decide to raise the food that they buy, but I think that this is the future.

- Mhm.

Do you wanna give people your TikTok handle?

- TikTok?

I have one?

(Rob laughs) - I thought it was funny.

Is there a way that people can get ahold of you?

Website?

Email?

- Yeah, email.

You can put my email address up if you would like.

- [Rob] It'll be right there.

- Okay.

- [Rob] Isn't that cool how they do that?

- That'll be perfect.

Yeah.

(Rob laughs) And I'd be happy to talk to anyone who's interested in, you know, looking at some of these ideas, whether you're a farmer or not a farmer.

You know, I'm not gonna tell you, "You farm wrong."

I'm going to say, "This is what I did.

If you're interested, here's some ideas.

If you're not, that's your call."

- Yeah.

No, I like it that you've had a chance to do some teaching on this, because that's the type of people that do the best teaching, they are the people that have been through it.

Dave Bishop from Atlanta, Illinois.

Dave, I wanna thank you for coming in and talking with us today.

I wanna thank you for challenging agriculture and challenging health.

I wanna thank you for your passion for looking at the rural America, the small towns like that, because we do get overlooked.

- Well, thank you for inviting me.

I think it is comforting to know that the interest is out there.

- Yeah, well, as long as people like you are still talking about it.

Dave Bishop, thank you very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

(uptempo guitar music) (uptempo guitar music continues) (uptempo guitar music fades)