SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Rex Curtis 8-30-24
Unstoppable, unshakeable, but it rolls out the town unfreakable, it's unavoidable, you show relatable, in between the lines start to loosen up your mind. Alright, and walk up again to Shark Palmer Radio. Hey, I'm your host Rob Sharkey, Emily and I are here live from the Farm Progress Show just outside of Boone, Iowa. What are you thinking, Em? I think this is fantastic, it's busier today, we have been talking to a lot of people. Everybody's jazzed. Everybody's jazzed, full sunshine out there, but everybody seems like they're in a good mood. Yeah, yeah. You've been shopping, you've been, I've been really impressed with you because you'll be looking at maybe a newer combine, or maybe a new tractor. And I appreciate that as a, yes, yeah, uh-huh. Should we get to our guest? Absolutely. Alright, today we got a very special guest, one that John Deere, I don't know, it was a big deal, wasn't it? Yeah, so Rex Curtis. What is your official title? Officially, I'm the Chief Tractor Officer. Unofficially, I'm the Chief TikTok Officer, because that's what I take care of. Okay, I don't know what either of that means. So, do you, I mean, you must be an expert on tractors then? No, that's a, a common misconception, actually, that the Chief Tractor Officer should know about tractors. While I'm learning a lot, really, the main point of my job being on TikTok is to engage the younger generation, what farmers are doing, where their food comes from, how their roads are built, things that tend to get lost in translation, from generation to generation. So, we're connecting them back with the fields. How much horsepower does a 40/20 have? You see, I'm not happy, because I wanted to be the Chief Tractor operator. I never applied for the job, but I just thought, you know, John Deere is like, "Oh, Rob, he's a great guy, we'll let him do it." And then they were like, "Oh, we got this Rex guy." You see, I think you would do an incredible job. I know I would. The only, the only issue that might arise from having you on the TikTok page is that 13-year-olds to, I don't know, 25-year-olds might not find it as relatable. What the hell are you trying to say? I'm saying this in the nicest way possible. They want somebody usually that they recognize and it's more palatable for them. He's saying he's a darn yout, and you are not. That's what I'm saying. I'm young. I'm young. But when you go to our TikTok page, you don't really see me talking that much. Oftentimes, I might be talking 10% of the time, and it's a farmer or a contractor doing most of the talking. I step in and I introduce the work that they're doing to make it easier for the younger generation to want to get involved with. Okay. Young man. No, that's fine. I mean, this interview just got a little more hostile, but we'll see how it goes. Okay, do you have any farm background? I did not grow up on a farm. My background with farm to the college I went to, the University of Washington. I studied environmental studies and sustainability, and I worked with local food co-operatives in the area doing a lot of marketing for them. The biggest difference for me doing that versus this is I'm working with a lot more machines now and scale farming, which I wasn't used to in the beginning. Now, my family, my cousins do farm. They got a farm up north of Sacramento and Yuba County, and they grow a lot of high value crops from my melons, almonds, walnuts. Yeah, that's always amazing going through California, all the different crops. Did you, I mean, did you know that you were getting this, or was it a process? Did you apply? Yeah, so for you guys that don't know the background on the position, John Deere essentially asked any and all creators to apply to this in order to spotlight our farmers, and to make a one-minute video saying why you're the guy for the job. And I am a musician, I'm a sculptor, I'm an environmental advocate, and I use those skills in my one-minute video, making a song, talking about sustainability, where John Deere shows up in our society, and I sculpted a tractor too. A song today that he did? Only if we had the beat. We did not have the beat. I even know what a beat is. How much takes did it take? Was this just a one and done, or did you practice and have to do a whole bunch of takes? Be honest. Well, I was still in college at the time, and I was studying for finals, so I made the song in about one day, spent the day making it, and then the next day I filmed the video in some minute. Okay, so you say a singer, a sculptor, and an environmental person. Yeah, you're a hippie. Is that what it is? Okay, all right, well, maybe that's why I didn't get the job. I'd say influencer. Yeah, like a Swiss army knife. I spend most of my time burning tires just for fun. It's beautiful to smoke. You ever seen that? So here you are. Now you're in agriculture, you're involved in farming, because a lot of farmers saw, maybe a production farmer. You know, one of those guys on TikTok should have been the CTO, and then you step into that. You got to step into a whirlwind. Yeah, I really did. I mean, I can't say that I expected the result of my announcement, but I'm also highly upset about it. Yeah, well, you know, they say any attention is good attention to some degree. Yeah, and you couldn't be mean. You couldn't go tell them to pound sand. You had to be all nice in that. You know, I wouldn't anyways. That's just, it's not who I am. I don't condone unfounded negativity against people, but I can understand and appreciate where they're coming from. It's a big change. I don't think we describe the role a lot before then. Yeah, y'all hippies are not. All right, we've got to go to break today. We're at the Farm Progress Show here just outside of Boone, Iowa. We'll be back. All right after the break. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground, where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io that's commonground.io. We should have had you singing. All right, welcome back, Shark Farmer Radio. We're here at the Farm Progress Show just outside of Boone, Iowa. We're here with Rex Curtis. John Deere is a CTO. Did they give you business cards? No. No business card. No business card. I can take talk page at all. You know, I just saw a bird fly over and it's given me flashbacks of our verbo last night. Yeah, that ain't cool. Oh my y'all are scared of bats, but we had a bat fly through the living room at our verbo last night and I just put a sheet over my head and started laughing because you were running around like a crazy person. No, I was running around like a hero trying to save you. We needed a tennis racket to hit that sucker, but we decided to open the front door and finally after about 30 minutes of it flying around, it did fly out the front door to live another day to eat some mosquitoes. If I had a tennis racket, I would have sent that thing to me. Yeah, I'm sorry if that offends your hippiness, but I would have killed that bat if I had the chance. There's that bird right over your head again. Yeah, so let's not talk about it. So a CTO chief attractor operator. So what are you doing with that position now? So in the past two months since I've been hired, I've traveled to about six different states visiting farmers that operate farms of all different kinds from high-value crops to row crops. And I've been capturing engaging content, seeing how they operate and what they're growing, but an important distinction to make, always focusing on just their equipment, even though they're using John Deere, we're focusing on them and their stories and what makes them unique and different from other farmers, because I think that's what people really connect with. Pretty much in agriculture, there's this corn and soybean farming, no others. And here you are, you're telling us different. Well, yeah, you ever been to a grocery store and walked through the the produce aisle? So farmers are alike in so many different ways, no matter where you go, right? They have so many things in common. What do you find in as you're talking to them and talking about their operation, excited that you want to know and get it out there? Or do you have to drag it out of them a little bit to tell their story? Because I feel like sometimes we hear, "Oh, I'm just a farmer. I'm not that interesting." That's like so interesting, right, when you get on their farm. Yes, and I think that's a really great question because the overwhelming sentiment I get from farmers is that they are really excited about this campaign and that they have somebody else to help them tell their story. I think a lot of the times when you hear them talking about, "Oh, I'm just a farmer. I don't want to have to do all this." It's usually over the internet, but when you get them face to face, they're the most genuine outspoken and passionate people that I've met. So yeah, I think everybody understands what John Deere was doing. A person like myself or some of the big social media people in agriculture, those data, they're not going to reach the audience that they were trying to reach. Hey, if you want to reach a person that's in a combine, picking corn, yeah, all right, you can go with one of those people, but yeah, who they were trying to reach and who you could reach is completely different. Yeah, I kind of describe it like this. We're doing this campaign for the farmers, but the videos themselves are for the next generation, not them. Yeah, if I remember back in the day I was on a farm bureau, whatever committee, and they wanted to do run ads in Chicago, and the marketing team said the best, you've got to run it on like this one station, but that wasn't a station that Max and Orion were on. So all the farmers said, "No, you got to run it on this one." I'm like, it doesn't make sense. Try to reach people outside our bubble, then we can't keep playing inside our bubble. That's exactly right. So tell us about one of the farms that you went on and what you talked about with a farmer. What did he show you? Did you get to jump in and help plan or what were you doing? I have a farm yet where I've actually gotten to help with the harvest or planting just because they don't trust you. He said they don't trust me. That's probably true as well. I think one of the coolest farms that I've got to see were down in California, because almost every operation you go to is different. And I got to go to Grimway Farms, where they have a very large carrot operation. And I learned so many cool facts about carrots that interest me because I feel like carrots. Yes, younger people. So baby carrots are extremely popular. We eat baby carrots raw, we juice them, we coin them, we cut them, but they were only invented in 1985. And so the market for them absolutely exploded back then. And we just think they've always been a thing. I feel like people I talked to in school, I tell them about it, they say, I thought we grew baby carrots in the ground. Yeah, well, I mean, that's what they think. They were like olden times, like the king and the queen used to have baby carrots. You guys, you actually eat them, the baby carrots. Oh, yeah. That's like 70% of the market for them, just for carrots. Do you know that? I did not. So as you got plans to visit other farms. Yes, we got plans for other farms right now. I really want to go see how cotton is harvested and plant it. So I'm trying to put that on the map right now. Cotton? Cotton. You need silage. Silage. You ever seen one of those silage shoppers? I don't think I have. Oh my gosh. They don't have one here, do they? John Deere people? No. Why not? That is the coolest looking piece of machinery on the face of the earth. And you don't have a silage shopper here at the show. Oh, well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a little bit about why I want to see cotton. A large part of my campaign to connect the younger generation is to show them a product that they are familiar with and then trace it back to agriculture. So, for example, fashion. We love clothes. Gen Z loves clothes, right? Where do you think that comes from, right? If you were to show a cotton bee might not be interested in that video, but if you start with some clothes and then trace it back, that's how we can bring them in and make them appreciate where it comes from. I thought your generation mainly wore like rayon. Isn't that what you guys do? I don't even know what that is. You don't know what rayon is? I don't think I had wonderful fabric. It does not breathe. It would work well today. I'll have to say the first time we saw it really is fantastic. That'll be great because and we never had been down south at that time because we were busy on our own farm and I remember we were traveling to a speech and we saw all the cotton fields in it. It's fantastic if you've never gotten to see it. All right. We do got a run to break. Today we are here at the farm progress site. I showed just outside of food and I. We'll be back with Rex to the breaks. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io. That's commonground.io. All right. We're with Rex Curtis, Jonders, CTO. So cool. Do you ever think you were going to go right out of school to be a CTO? Absolutely not. Do you use that? Are you a single guy? No, I'm not because I want to die down. That would have been a great pickup line. Hey, what do you do? I'm a hairdresser. Oh, I'm a CTO. I think I'd be more silent than that. Or is that how you can't just you can't lead with it? Is that how you got the gal? No, no. No, she stayed down. All right. What what do I got in my hand here? That is a baby bell cheese. It's a if you for the people listening on the radio, it's the the red, I don't know, wrapped up stuff. I'm going to give you a piece. I know we've got microphones. I'm going to give Emily a piece piece. Okay. And then who wants some cheese? There we go. Oh, yeah, a round of applause or not. All right. Give us a second. We're going to unwrap these. This is great radio right here. Some ASMR. Get my damn pocket knife out. I want it. Are these things always this hard to unwrap? When you got a mic in your hand, yeah. Okay, get that out. And then it's got the little string. That's right. And then you pull that. And then you got to see, I don't care if you need to choose or not. I'm eating cheese. You're eating it. You don't eat on the radio, but my whole stick, man. I'm not wasteful. CTO. Yeah. Oh, I don't. One is plenty. You can have that one. I feel like you're just kind of edging the crowd here. You want to. If you want a piece of cheese, you know where the rest of it went, right? All right. So you have a unique ability to sculpt things out of a baby bell. That's right. All right. Well, let's see what you got. I'll do one too. Okay. Again, this is fantastic radio. Okay. You kind of got to get it melted down. Oh, now we're getting the excuses now. Okay. Okay, I'll talk in scope. So one of the first things I posted was a sculpture I made out of recycled baby bell cheese wax. During quarantine, I would keep all the casings and just mess around with them because I like art. So what young people do? Yeah, exactly. And I began sculpting endangered species out of the cheese wax and then going live and showing people how the process works and donating some of the proceeds to a different endangered species. And yeah, that's kind of how I took off as a creator at the beginning. I'm done, by the way. What the? Look, everybody, it's an elephant. What the heck is that? It's an elephant. Can you see it? An elephant? Don't shake your elephant. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, there's maybe a male elephant now. I'm still working, man. This art takes time. It's a few people to get that. Yeah, we're just what you want my wax to? Nah, we're good. Sorry, can we auction this off? You probably could, yeah. And this heat, it wouldn't last more than five minutes. $200 and you can walk away with it, all yours. No takers. Okay. Here, you can have, you can keep that. You did, what did you make? I did not. I made a crude turtle, man. That's actually not, that's actually not too bad. I was unaware that it was gonna be so terrible. All right, let's give a round of applause for the turtle there. Yeah. You're gonna go far in life. All right, in all seriousness, you're talking to farmers, what do you want them to know about what you're trying to do? I think that it's important to educate the next generation about where their food, where their food comes from, because what I'm seeing is that every generation is getting farther and farther away from the farm. And educating younger people allows them to make more informed choices about what they support when it comes to what they're going to buy when they go to the grocery store. And their connection with nature overall. And I think using people, not just equipment to do that, is going to be where we find the most success online. Very well said. You know, I think you and I are a lot more alike than than most people would realize. I don't know if you saw over there the deer blind. Yeah, I'm not sure if I did. A deer blind over there. It's a shark farmer series deer blind. It's the giant building. And I want to help people connect with nature in that deer blind. I want them to connect with a deer at a high velocity. See, we're more or the same than you oven. And they do they do taste good on a grill. Jerky. Yeah, I was just in Montana and some guy gave me a beef stick. I'm like, well, I ate it. And I'm like, this is delicious. Like, where's the beef from? He's like, this is elk. I'm like, oh, where'd you get that? He's like, I shot it last week. Okay. You heard it here first, folks. Rex doesn't like beef. Did John Deere know that before they hired you? What? That I don't like beef? You don't like beef. Man, the beef producers are going crazy right now. You're able to take a ribbing. I think that's the main. They're going to be successful. You know, when you get somebody that's so sensitive or whatever, you know, farming, farming, we're tough. We're very proud of what we do. We do have to teach people outside our bubble about it or else we're going to wither away into where we're irrelevant. That's where someone like you comes along. So I had that you teamed up with John Deere. I'm looking excited, excited to the future of seeing what you're going to do. I really appreciate that, Rob. Thank you. Oh, now, now it's not so fun when you can't be mean to me. Workin' people, find your stuff. On the John Deere TikTok page, just type in John Deere on TikTok and we'll show up there. Okay, and you got your own? I got a personal page, yeah, which is just my name on Instagram, Rex Curtis. And on TikTok, it's Rextro Creative, R-E-X-T-R-O Creative. And there, I just give a little bit more background on the trips that I'm doing. Some intermonologue type stuff. Oh, you get inside Rex's brain. Yeah, what it's like being an influencer for a corporation. I mean, I don't think there's another job like it. For now, I think it will be the future. Did you travel a lot before this? No, not a ton. Okay. Do you enjoy it? Oh, I love it. I love being on the road. I'm young, I'm 22. I got a lot of energy and I love talking to people and making videos. Do you find farmers are willing to talk to you? Yeah, but I won't lie at first. There are a little quiet like, well, what the heck do you know? Yeah, sometimes I ask that. We're busy burning tires and stuff like that. I mean, we really don't have time to talk to the young kids. Yeah, again, to drag us into that type of mindset. I look forward to it. Emily, I know you have been silent. Do you have a question? No, I'm excited to see how you reach people. What's the what's next? What's the next? Do you know what your next stop is going to be where you're headed next? It's kind of undecided. Nice. We're nearing the end of the month and then we're going to start throwing things on the calendar probably on the first. And like I said, I want to see some cotton. Well, and you just got to tour while you were around Illinois and Iowa, you went to some of the John Deere Museum tour in Moline. Yes, we went to the John Deere historic site. So where John Deere actually lived. And that was incredible. We went with Jackson, Justin Jackson thing, the tractor kid. And I think I had a lot more fun at the historic site than he did because there wasn't any tractors there. Did you know there was actually a John Deere? A man? Yes, yes. Our schools are teaching something. All right, Rex, I want to thank you for being a good sport. We enjoyed giving you a hard time up here, but yeah, not a problem. Rex, thank you for everything you're doing. But don't go anywhere, Sean Haney's coming up next. Interesting. Yeah, we'll catch everybody next time. [Music]