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

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I get it.

I get it, folks.

Y'all want it.

We wanna talk about bacon.

And you say, "Rob, I want more bacon shows."

Okay, well, we listened.

Today we're talking with Chad Bell from Viola, Illinois.

How you doing, Chad?

- We're doing pretty good, Rob.

How about you?

- You are a creator of bacon.

- I'd like to say that, yeah.

- Yeah, you do like bacon, right?

- Absolutely.

- I had to ask.

I knew the answer, but I had to ask, yeah.

You're up there in Viola.

For people that don't know, where is Viola in the great state of Illinois?

- We are in Northwest Illinois just south of the Quad Cities.

So, John Deere headquarters, we're about 30 minutes from there right along the Mississippi River.

So if Iowa ever wants a part of Illinois, we would love to go over there.

- Well, what about us?

I mean, they could just like...

I would say I-80.

If they lopped I-80 off and the rest of us could get divvied up- - I could agree with that.

- I'd go to Indiana.

I'm okay with that.

I'd rather go to Iowa or Missouri, but, you know, Kentucky, if they wanna weasel.

The way we draw maps up here, they could do that.

We could be part of Kentucky.

(Chad laughs) - We could be a gerrymandered state.

- Absolutely.

- We won't get any further than that.

- (laughs) You are farming up there.

Were you a farm kid?

- Yep, grew up on a farm.

I consider myself a sixth-generation farmer, so I come from a long line of farmers.

We came from Ireland back in the 1800s.

- [Rob] The potato famine?

- Possibly.

- Yeah.

- My history doesn't go quite back that far or my history lesson.

So, made it over to Illinois, and apparently we saw the Mississippi River and decided not to go any further.

- "Yeah, we ain't doing that.

It looks like another ocean.

Let's just stop here."

- A little too deep to cross.

(Rob laughs) - Okay, you raise corn, beans, and wheat.

Actually, I mean, a lot of farmers don't mess with the wheat.

Why do you?

- So it gave me an opportunity to try some more cover crops.

I do quite a bit of cover-cropping and have for the last 10 or 11 years.

And so the wheat gave me an opportunity to try a summer cover crop that I can get started in the summertime and just have the additional time of growth before fall comes in and winter.

Otherwise, the cover crops that we're looking at are primarily seeded after corn and soybean harvest, so it doesn't give us a lot of variety to work with.

- Yeah, do you spread manure after you cut the wheat?

- Yep, so that's part of the program too.

I don't have to pump any manure at that time, but I've decided as part of my program with wheat and the cover-cropping, manure is part of that.

- Well, you never know when a water line's gonna break, and you got a full pit all of a sudden.

- That's true, and you also don't know when a neighbor potentially has the same issue as well and needs a place to go, and they may not have a place to pump manure either.

So it's helped a neighbor out before.

- Well, okay, so not everybody is like tuned into pig farming and that, but generally you spread manure on a crop after it's cut.

So, like corn and soybeans, that's in the fall.

- Yeah.

- But yeah, this allows you to do some in the mid-summer.

- Yeah, this would be pumped in the time frame of late July, early August, and then seed a cover crop and get ready for next year's corn crop.

- So you have a pig barn.

It's wean to finish.

So explain to people what that means.

- So, wean to finish, I am a contract producer with a local farm.

And so I receive pigs in when they have been freshly weaned from Mama.

So I get them when they are between 10 and 15 pounds, and then I raise them to finish, which is considered market weight around 280 to 300 pounds.

- Okay, what kind of building does that look like?

'Cause we used to be feeder to finish, so we would get 'em in at 50 to 60 pounds and then raise 'em up.

At the time it was 250.

I couldn't imagine a building that would allow us to go from 10 to 15 all the way up to now 280, different size slats and all that stuff.

What's your building look like?

- Yep, so it's an 80-pen building.

It's very long and narrow, and there's an alleyway down the middle and pens on each side.

And when I first get those pigs in, like I said, they're 10 to 15 pounds, so they'll fit in your hands.

And it looks like...

When you have 2,400 head of little pigs in there, it doesn't look like there's any pigs in there at all.

And then five months, 5 1/2 months later when they're full size, there's not a lot of extra room in there.

So they grow fast, (Rob laughs) and they take up a lot of space real quick.

- So did you grow up on a farm?

- Yes, yep, always have.

- [Rob] And it was your dad and your uncle?

- It started out with my grandfather and my dad and uncles who I was raised up on the farm with.

My grandfather passed away in 2003 in a tragic car accident, and then my dad and uncle were farming together then.

And family dynamics sometimes, you know, it is what it is.

Our farm went through a split, so my dad and uncle split apart, and that, I think, in the end really allowed me a potential opportunity in the end to come back to the farm.

My dad, he had cancer in 2011, so our farm has really faced a lot of adversity in a short period of time.

You know, I was in high school and shortly thereafter through all of that.

And so there was a time where I wasn't sure if farming was in the cards for me.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- But, you know, adversity, I like to say, brings opportunity.

And so my dad going through the cancer, he realized that, you know, maybe now is a good time to... "I have other things to do besides farming," that's what my dad said.

And so that gave me an opportunity to take his place on the farm, and he's still helping me on the farm, but he's more semi-retired.

And him and my mom like to travel, so when they wanna go somewhere, they go somewhere, and I have no problem with that.

- When you said you weren't sure if it was, you know, farming was gonna be in the cards, did you mean because you saw what farming can do, and maybe like, "This isn't for me"?

Or just wouldn't have an opportunity?

- I think it was more the opportunity part.

My dad was also an alcoholic, and so I'm not saying any of this stuff...

It's part of my story.

It's part of what has me in this seat here today.

Like I said, we faced a lot of adversity, and just with all the different things that happened, you know, I didn't know if the farm was still gonna be there when I was of age to come home to the farm.

And luckily, things worked out for me.

They may not have worked out for somebody else, but I cherish the opportunity that I have received and have worked pretty hard since then to keep the farm going.

- So after high school, what happened then?

- I went off to college for four years.

I went to Illinois State University.

I'm wearing U of I colors today, but that's all right.

The set is Illinois State Redbird colors.

- Are you trying to throw shade on somebody or- - No, no, no, no.

So I went to college for four years, graduated with a ag business and agronomy degree.

Went to work full-time off the farm for Gold Star FS, a local ag retail company, where I worked with other farmers selling seed, chemicals, fertilizer, crop protection, and helped them crop plan and just work as a team member in their operation.

- So you had to know your stuff?

- I learned a lot of stuff real fast.

I didn't know a whole lot coming in.

You know, I had a farming background, and that gives you kind of a leg up compared to some, but also you think you know some things that you really don't.

(Rob and Chad laugh) And so I learned real fast that things that worked on my farm don't work for other people's farms, and vice versa.

Things that didn't work for them would work on my farm.

I was able to apply some of those things at home on the farm as well.

- Plus you were young.

I mean, did the old farmers, they trust you?

- Yeah, the location that I worked at, a lot of us were younger, 20s and 30s.

And so they had to trust us, and they did before I got there.

And so it was just kind of a continuation of the young generation at that ag retail location working with the farmers.

We continuously gained more business and worked hard for the farmers, and it seemed to pay off every year.

- So you worked there for five years, and then tell me about the transition back to your farm.

- Yeah, so the transition, really, you think about the typical father-son stereotypical relationship.

- I don't think there is a typical, yeah.

- Where the father and son are butting heads, and the son's trying to bring new ideas to the farm, and the father or the older generation is maybe a little more resistant to that.

- That was such a nice way to say both those.

(Rob laughs) - We didn't have that.

Like I said, my dad had cancer in 2011.

I came back to the farm in 2013.

And so kind of as part of that, my dad was more than willing to step back and just kind of let me take it from there.

- Which is a rarity in agriculture.

- And it is, and it's a blessing and a curse at times because I was able to start operating the farm with the freedom that I felt was necessary.

I have made pretty much all of the financial and agronomic decisions, marketing decisions, from day one.

And so- - [Rob] It's a lot of pressure.

- I didn't necessarily look at it that way, but, yeah, it can be depending on how you look at it.

I just looked at it as the opportunity for me to run a farm the way I saw fit, and whether that was the right way or the wrong way... My dad would suggest things to do differently from time to time.

But he pretty well, he never said it, I don't think, but it was pretty well known that "This farm is now yours to operate, so do what you feel you need to do."

- Was the hog barn in place, or was that your deal?

- No.

The hog barn was more my individual deal.

During that timeframe that the barn was built at the end of 2017, and there was kind of a rough stretch of farming right from '13 to '17, '18, well, just a few years right in there.

And so I was- - About 22.

- Yeah, (Ron laughs) a few of those years.

And so I was looking with the size that our farm was at that time that I needed another income stream.

And so that brought me back into livestock.

We had hogs when I was a kid and cattle, and my dad got out of the cattle back in about 2018 as part of kind of his transition plan out.

And I brought the pigs back in at the end of 2017.

And leading up to that, there was talk of getting out of the cows.

And it kind of sat funny with me that, okay, the cows are gonna leave.

I'm gonna just become a crop farmer.

And that didn't really sit well with me because I knew that our farm was diversified back in the '80s and '90s when I was growing up.

And I have seen what diverse farms can do and how it seems like they are long-term and better positioned as a diversified farm versus just a row crop-only or a livestock-only farm.

And that was something that I thought I needed to do to be viable moving forward.

- I mean, the row crop's nice.

We work, I don't know, three, 3 1/2 weeks a year.

It's pretty slick.

- Four-by-four?

Is your truck four-wheel drive?

Four-by-four?

- Of course.

- Four weeks in the spring, four weeks in the fall?

- I don't know, it has leather seats.

(Chad and Rob laugh) - Mine doesn't.

- You found.... What is this?

- So that is a daily planner or daily journal.

My grandparents back in the '80s and '90s kept a journal of everything that went on on the farm and in personal life, day by day, kept track of the weather and just what went on on the farm every day.

I came across those a few weeks ago in my grandma's house and decided to take 'em home and look at 'em and kind of keep track of what things were going on day by day through the calendar year.

- "Bob broke down in the field.

I got to drive the truck by myself."

Was that you?

- My name is written right up there.

- You weren't very old.

- I was seven.

- Seven.

I mean, "Sold 20 hogs to Bob Evans."

Those were junk hogs, weren't they, to Bob Evans?

- I don't think so.

I think that was... - That's where we always sent the junk.

- I don't know.

I was seven, so I'm not 100% sure.

- It's closed now, isn't it?

- Yeah, that was in Galva, Illinois, I believe, at that time.

- Well, this is every single day.

- Literally every day unless they were on vacation.

Then it was a little sparse, and their kids and grandkids were responsible for filling in what happened.

- So August of 1994, Wednesday the 10th, "I love to go with Dad."

That's a Chad entry, right?

- It must be.

Honestly, I haven't gotten that far in that book, so that's interesting find.

- Oh, sorry, I kind of kind of spoiled the show for you.

- That's all right.

- Okay.

All right, that's very cool.

I enjoy when people do this.

I don't know.

I've never had to temperament to like do a diary or even like keep track of rainfall, stuff like that.

- No, I mean, I'm hard, or I just don't do any...

I really don't write a lot down.

I store it on my phone now, but I don't write things like that down.

But I like to take pictures as I'm farming.

So I guess going through my camera roll on my phone is kind of some of that in 2025.

- My gosh, what do we got there?

- That is a COVID haircut from back in 2020.

- You look like Napoleon Dynamite's unfortunate cousin.

- I've been told that with that hair, and the name slips my mind now, but from "Home Alone," one of the burglars.

- Yeah, yeah, I know which one you're talking about, the guy that gets whacked in the head by a paint can.

- All the time.

- Look, it's Napoleon.

"Shut up Tina, you stupid lard."

- "Eat your ham."

(Rob laughs) - Who gave you that?

- So that was kind of an award from Illinois Farm Bureau Young Leaders.

The story behind that originally was my wife prior to 2020 and COVID, she would cut my hair.

Well, she got tired of doing that.

She told me to go to the hair salon.

So I started getting haircuts at the salon uptown.

- [Rob] Did she knew what you looked like?

- She had seen pictures, but she had never seen it in real life.

- But she said, "No, not cutting your hair anymore"?

She said, "I'm not cutting your hair."

So I went to the salon.

COVID happened.

Everything shut down.

So it was back to, she offered to cut my hair, and I said, "You didn't wanna do it before.

Why do you wanna do it now?"

- You were such a dude.

You were such a dude.

You could've had your hair cut, but, no, you had to do that.

- Could have.

- "No, you didn't wanna cut my hair, so la-di-da."

- Yep.

So nine months, nine or 10 months of growing my hair, it was bigger than what the banner shows.

Come about December, I was getting tired of it, and I thought, "I'm just gonna shave it off."

And I was talking with another Farm Bureau Young Leader friend.

And somehow we brainstormed this idea.

It turned into Haircuts for Hunger.

And we wanted to do a fundraiser because the year of COVID, there was no fun, nothing fun whatsoever.

So we decided to turn into a fundraiser.

Our goal was $5,000, to raise $5,000 and donate it to a local food bank.

And the idea that spurred from that was for every thousand-dollar increments that we reach, we were gonna have a celebrity haircutter.

So one of those was my wife and then the district Farm Bureau director was another one at another thousand-dollar increment.

Top goal, $5,000, my kids would cut my hair.

- [Rob] Oh.

- We ended up raising $7,100- - Oh.

- For this Haircuts for Hunger that we donated to River Bend Food Bank in the Quad Cities.

And my kids, it took them at least 20 minutes.

- [Rob] Was it scissors?

- Scissors.

- Good... (laughs) - Electric shaver.

The scissors were- - You're lucky to be here.

- I know.

There is video evidence that we could watch sometime, but one of my ears just about didn't make it.

- [Rob] Got van Gogh'ed.

- Pretty close.

- Yeah.

- My kids were five years younger at that time, so they were... My daughter would've been seven, six, and my son would've been three?

No, four.

(Rob laughs) And so they were a little too young to be operating scissors and electric shaver, but.

- Well, honestly, you couldn't do a whole lot worse.

You had the Pit Vipers too.

Did you have like an Affliction T-shirt on, maybe a fanny pack?

- No, I did have some- - White socks pulled up to your knee?

- I did have some full-on coveralls going on at that time.

I don't wear bib overalls or bib coveralls.

I wear the full slip-in, (Rob sighs) throw-'em-over-your-shoulders coveralls, so that completed the outfit in that picture.

- That's a unique look.

- It is.

(card tapping) - You're not afraid to show your farm on social media, are you?

- No, absolutely not.

- Why not?

- I think it's important to show what we do on the farm every day and in agriculture.

Everyone's talked about this in the ag industry for a long time, that every day, people are further removed from the farm.

And so I think it's important to show what we do on the farm to help bridge that gap, and we hear that term "bridging the gap" all the time.

But I think the importance has never been bigger or more...

It's never been more important to show people where their food comes from.

And people don't eat corn and soybeans directly, but they are part, an ingredient, in the process that becomes food.

And we just need to do a better job of showing what it is that we do on our farm and help tell our story on what we do and why we do it 'cause I think that's still missing.

And there's plenty of misinformation out about what farmers do.

And I think we just really need to do a better job of dispelling those myths.

- Am I dreaming, or were you on the Super Bowl commercial?

- I was.

- Okay, that was you, yeah.

(Chad laughs) - It was a bad dream for you, I'm sure.

- Like, it was several farmers on there?

- Yep, yep, it was, and it was part of the We Are the 96 campaign.

And that was a campaign that was ran, and I believe that was 2022 and 2023, just showcasing the fact that 96% of all Illinois farms are family-owned and operated.

We know that from the research done with that project that consumers trust farmers.

And we were able to help show that, well, consumers trust farmers.

96% of all the farms in Illinois are family-owned and operated.

People don't like the idea of Corporate America and corporate farming and this and that.

Well, we're family farmers, and that's far from the truth for us.

- Yeah, I don't know any farmers that are corporate.

I think some of it gets pulled into like who owns the ground.

- Yeah.

- And that, but, you know, as far as the actual people that are farming, obviously there's some big farmers, but I don't know any faceless corporations.

- Yeah, I mean, a lot of the times, the person that's driving the tractor out in the field is also the one writing the checks and delivering the grain and planting the crops and managing the farm day-to-day operations.

- You talk about your social media.

You show the good and bad, and you do it with a little humor.

I've seen your social media.

I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about.

- So TikTok is where I've...

It's kind of the platform that I would consider as my non-PC platform.

- Oh, you get naughty, say the bad words?

- Yes and no.

- What words?

You can say 'em.

It's PBS, you can, yeah.

(Chad laughs) - No, I think I'll pass on that for now, but I don't wanna get in trouble.

One of the most favorite TikToks that I've made was a year ago in the wintertime.

It was brutally cold out.

I'm in my hog building where it's 80 degrees in there, and I'm down to my underwear, and I bust through the door, and I say, "I don't know what all you cattle farmers are complaining about.

It's not that cold out."

Meanwhile, on social media and other places, they're talking about frozen water and tractors that won't start.

And here I am in my skivvies telling them, "Well, I don't know what you're talking about."

- Here's a little thing that I've learned over the years being on social media, that cattle farmers don't have a sense of humor.

(Chad laughs) Did you find that?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

(Rob laughs) - That's what you gotta do, though, right?

It used to be you could just show like a pig eating, right?

That would be fascinating.

But I mean, everybody's doing that now, so you gotta set yourself apart.

- I just didn't know that a cattle farmer would take someone standing in their underwear serious.

- Oh yeah, we're still on that.

I told you.

I wasn't joking.

Cattle people do not have a sense of humor, and you know it's true.

Damn well know it.

(laughs) - Absolutely.

- Yeah, I suppose they commented a few times.

- There was a few.

And every time, I replied, "You took someone wearing nothing but underwear serious?

You think I'm serious?"

(Rob laughs) - Is that the way you do chores every day?

- When it's hot in the summertime, sometimes yes.

- Tell everybody where they can find you on social media.

- I'm on Facebook, just Chad Bell, my name, and then on TikTok, bellfamilyfarms.

Those are the two primary places you can find me.

- Okay, well, I want you to keep doing that because we gotta have people on social media that are gonna be able to interact with our non-farming friends, and I think you found a way to do that.

- Yeah, I wouldn't say that I'm very good at it.

I just have a lot of fun.

- I didn't say that.

- That's true.

- Yeah.

- You left that part out.

(Rob laughs) I just have fun doing it.

- Yeah, well, that's what it's all about.

Chad Bell from Viola, Illinois.

Chad, I wanna thank you for coming on the show.

I wanna thank you for what you're doing.

(exhales and sighs) - Absolutely.

- Those are Pit Vipers, folks, Pit Vipers.

(laughs) You are a lot of fun.

Yeah, like I said, people like you in agriculture are making it more relatable for people outside of agriculture.

So I wanna thank you for that.

Really do appreciate it.

- Yep, absolutely.

Thank you.

- Chad, thanks for coming.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

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