SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Dave Bishop from Atlanta, IL 10-7-24
Unstoppable, unshakeable, but it rolls off the tongue, unbreakable, it's unavoidable. You saw a little bony between the lines start to loosen up your mind. And welcome again to Shark Farmer Radio. Hey, I'm your host Rob Sharky. We're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. Studio powered by Bex hybrid. Harvest is still in full swing. That feels good. I feel like we're getting a lot done. I haven't seen any service trucks today, so that's always good. Why would you put that juju on me? Why would you do that? I was trying to give you props, you know, that if there's been anything wrong, you've handled it. So, you know, that's always nice. Now we're sticking with corn. I don't know. I mean, we've got 180 acres of beans left. I could go and knock those out, but I it's they're like small fields and it would honestly would probably take three days to get all that done. So I'm just going to stick with corn and feel like you're getting a lot more done. And maybe if it rain, maybe the beans would pick up a little. Well, I tell you what, we won't complain about the rain because after all the coverage that we did last week of the hurricane, oh, you know, it was nice. I'm so glad people took time out of their schedule to update us on what was going on. And boy, a lot of money was raised. A lot of people heading with generators and water and you name it. And I feel sorry for people. I think they're seeing some pretty horrible things starting to come out. It's starting to come out. But you know, I was I thought it was important to get it out there because it wasn't being covered. So I'm glad that we had a chance to talk with people, get the word out, get some money, get some things going there. And one of the people we interviewed last week that Emmy Lou Armstrong will be on the podcast tomorrow. Yes, drops tomorrow morning. And she talks about how it was, you know, on her dairy farm and what they were doing, neighbors, bottling water. So it was fantastic. Oh, it's just unreal. It is unreal. All right. Let's go to Atlanta, Illinois. Let's talk with Dave Bishop. How are you doing, Dave? I'm doing well, doing well, beautiful weather and harvest is underway here. All right. Well, for the people that are not from the once great state of Illinois, where is Atlanta? Atlanta is right in the center of Illinois between Springfield and Bloomington along I-55. Oh, God's country. Horrible farm ground down there. Oh, just well, why does a fan cake and eight feet of black dirt? Jesus. Well, that's the bad ground. That you teach a regenerative ag at Heartland College. How long have you been doing that? Well, I retired, theoretically, anyway, back in 19 or 2019 and had an opportunity to help the college develop its ag program and so they asked me to come and teach a class. So I've been doing that off and on since 2019. Does a farmer ever really retire? Because I know, I know you haven't. No, I think the difference retiring on the farm is moving from a paying job to a non paying job. You know, your kids call you up in the morning and say, hey, dad, you know, and there goes the day. I don't know. It might be the opposite. You go from a non paying job of farming to a paying job of teaching. Well, in my case, I'm just really happy to have kids we're willing and able to take over the farm. So, you know, it's nice to see your legacy being carried on. So why complain? So did you have any background in teaching? Oh, gosh, I was a flight instructor for some years after I got out of college. And that was as close as I came, I guess, to having a formal teaching job. But that wasn't exactly your common ordinary teaching job. So yeah, I guess kind of sort of. Well, it sounds like you kind of just dove right into it. I mean, I always thought that would be hard. It seems easy to teach, but like having the whole semester planned out and doing tests and all that stuff. Did you find that difficult? Well, I found that let's use the word challenging. It sounds a little bit easier, but I did enjoy it very much. And what I had my students do was we spent the semester developing a farm that you would want to own and operate. And so each student developed their own particular farm. We had everything from large backyard to 3000 acre farms. But I wanted it to be something that you could actually use in real life. So that was the focus of the semester and regenerative ag. Okay, so what is the definition of regenerative ag? Well, what you're looking for really is how do I develop a farm that is not excessively dependent upon external inputs, buying things. I want to raise my own fertilizer, for example. I do that with a high degree of diversity. Life stock back on the land is one of the key components to developing regenerative agriculture. I want to keep the wealth I create in the community. I can do that by direct marketing. I am looking for ways to sell some of the basic problems in agriculture today, largely, which is the exporting of wealth out of the community. And we've seen what that's done to our rural communities over the past, say, 40 years. So how do we stop that outflow of wealth? Well, we developed what we would call local local type farming systems. And so that's been a focus for me personally on my farm as well as for the college class. Okay, so like when you were farming, did you farm this way? Or is it more of like a kind of a new venture? I had the good fortune, I guess, of growing up back in the 1950s and 60s, when all farms were small diversified and organic. At that time, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were a brand new thing just coming in the common news. And so I've seen how this could work. And we had dynamic local communities, lots of people, lots of energy. And I had to watch all that disappear over my working life. Okay. Well, that we've got to take a break. Arté, we're talking with Dave Bishop from Atlanta, Illinois. He's teaching regenerative ag over Heartland College. When come back, we're going to continue our conversation 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. Like I mentioned, we got Amy Lou Armstrong, tomorrow's podcast. Flood victim, hurricane victim. They have a dairy. Had to find somewhere to go with the milk. Yes, absolutely. And just amazing stories. All last week, we had amazing people on the XM show and talking about what they were doing to help. We even had John Stone, a musician in Nashville. And he's going to be making his third trip with a semi truck delivering things like generators and extension cords and you name it. So it's amazing how many people have been raising money, you know, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 dollars at a time and sending a truckload, making sure that it makes it there. Boy, farmers and ranchers, they take care of themselves. Take care of each other. If there's ever a need, they're like, all right, we're going to do it ourselves if FEMA's not quick enough. So I love to hear that. That's right. Also, tomorrow is what the last episode of season nine, shark farmer TV? Season nine, yes, 13th episode and we start season 10. So yeah, Dan Cell is on tomorrow night on shark farmer. Oh my gosh. That guy. You give him a hard time. People think you don't like him. He's a friend. He's a nice guy. Well, I, yeah, let's, let's be clear. I don't like him. All right. Today, we're talking with Dave Bishop from Atlanta, Illinois. He's a teaching regenerative ag over at a Heartland college. And Dave, thanks for the, the definition. Because you don't always get it. A lot of people think that's just like, you know, growing corn with moon beams and hippie stuff. But you guys are actually talking about the economics of it. So you've been farming for what'd you say 40 40 years? I was farming 40 years in 2019. So you went through the 80s. How did that go? Well, it started that kind of nice and ended well, making some serious changes on the farm. I remember, like I said, I remember when all farms are more or less diversified. And I was actually a junior in college when Earl Butts made his famous get bigger, get out comment. And the rush toward industrial monocultures began. And when I, I started farming on my own in 20, in 1997, that's right. And at that point in time, I was just doing what everybody else was doing. Because, you know, everybody else was just going to strictly corn and soybeans very dependent on fertilizers and pesticides. And I thought, well, that's the future. And so I tried doing that. And I kind of lived along with that until 1987, which was my great year of, well, let's say the lesson in humility finally got home. I had this crop of soybeans. It was a brand new variety developed locally. And these things were chest high. They were phenomenal looking soybeans. The university came out and looked in, they estimated the yield could be a 65 bushelte acre. In the 80s? Wow. Yeah. 80s unheard of 40 bushel was a really good yield in those days. So I was pretty proud of myself. That whole summer there was walking around, looked at those beautiful beans. But then comes August, the early August. The beans are dry. It's time to harvest. I went out in the field and I made a pass around the edge of the field. And boy, I tell you, it was like, oh my goodness. I've got the world record, right? But that night it started to rain. And it got real warm. It was in the 80s and stayed wet for 10 straight days. And those soybeans start popping out of the pod. And then by the time it was trying to have to go back to the field, the ground was littered with these black sprouted soybeans. And what was left, the elevator wouldn't even take. So I went from the greatest on earth to absolutely nothing in Spain of 10 days. I always took that as nature's reminder. When you get thinking, you're doing pretty good and you get a little cocky. Nature has this way of reminding you of your place. Oh, I hate those reminders. But and of course, the crop insurance in those days was protection from wind and hail. So it didn't do you much good. Well, we went from that into 1988. And that was, it is the drought here on the 1st of April and the 1st of November. And that was the hottest summer on record. In fact, it was the summer that a scientist named James Hansen told Congress that human activity was causing something he called climate change. That's the first time we ever heard that term. And since it didn't rain between the 1st of April and the 1st of November here, the corn had a kind of a small stock, but it didn't fall in the air. And I believe the soybeans got about six inches tall. And let's say that didn't yield any kind of income at all. So that was an interesting moment with the banker that year. But since everyone else was pretty much in the same place, I guess the banker figured he might as well just fund this again because he had no other way of getting his investment back. But what it did for us was it made me decide that I needed to change. I needed to do something different. Let me interrupt you for one second though. The guy that went to Congress. So I mean, that made an impression on you? Well, you know, not at the time. Not at the time. But as I look, I just remember hearing that. But as I look back now on it, it makes an impression on me that we knew as far back as 1988 to what we're doing, it's not good for us. But we kind of brushed it off like I did. And we really didn't take it seriously. Now in 2024, we're needing to, we're realizing that we need to take a more serious look at this. And that's changing things. The being man made. Yes. Man made these, many of these issues we're facing today could have been avoided had we acted otherwise. Like what? Well, you know, I suppose the storms that are getting more and more powerful. Well, I mean, like what, what could we have done different? Well, we could have not, you know, I remember my grandfather. This was back in the 1950s, when we started using all these pesticides and all this stuff. I remember my grandfather wondering out loud, why would you think you could put poison on your food and not poison yourself? And for some reason, I could just never forget that. But we did that. We did that. And that, you know, now we're finding out that, you know, people are getting cancer from these things, but we keep using them. We keep doing that because we really don't know what else to do. We don't know how else to find. And that is what regenerative agriculture is really looking at. How do you farm without these kinds of things? And how do you be successful economically without them? Okay. All right. Well, we're going to get some break again. Today, we're talking with Dave Bishop from Atlanta, Illinois. He teaches regenerative agriculture at Heartland College. When we come back, we're going to continue our conversation. Plus, we're coming back with Will. Where in the world is he this time? 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. Well, did you have a good weekend? I did. I had a great weekend in Birmingham, Alabama at furnace fest. Furnace Fest. Furnace Fest. Is that like where you go and listen to music for the weekend? Yes, it is hardcore and metal core music. Oh my gosh, I'm surprised you can even hear today. Do I need to talk louder? No, no, I'm an ear plug advocate. Oh, you're old. Oh, see, that's smart. Well, it honestly, it sounds better with ear plugs. The science would tell you that high frequencies would hurt you ears and also there's just so much high frequency energy present in live music just naturally and ear plugs roll that off. And when you make music and you produce music, you're gonna edit the sounds to roll that off anyway, so it helps it sound better. See, see, we, yeah, I agree. I agree. When I go listen to really loud music, I have ear plugs. I enjoy it so much more. Furnace Fest. I loved his movies. Ernest goes a camp. Ernest, I'd loved all those. Will, where are we at today? We're in Atlanta, formerly Zenia, which is a city in Logan County, Illinois. From Z to an A, okay. Yeah, yeah. The community was incorporated February 14th, 1855. Valentine's Day. That's sweet. Right. The American Giants Museum is located in Atlanta. The American Giants Museum tells the story of the kitschy and quirky muffler man or Bunyan Giants statues that spring up in the 1960s as advertising gimmicks across the USA. Today, there are some of the most popular attractions for tourists traveling historic Route 66. The museum building resembles a vintage Texaco service station because a Texaco big friend giant will be one of the featured exterior exhibits. Is that like the guy that looks like tires are stacked? Yeah, it's 24 feet tall. He's like, it's white and right with blue pants. Kind of looks like the marshmallow guy, but he's like ribbed. It kind of just looks like Paul Bunyan to me. Oh, I must be thinking so much. But maybe I am looking at something else. I don't know. Well, we got some notable people. We got Lee Dunham, first baseman in MLB Philadelphia Phillies, born in Atlanta. Okay. We got Dave Kindred, a sports writer. Eleanor Sofia Smith, a composer, music educator, and whole house music co-founder. Oh, and we got Ellen Rankin-Cop, a sculptor. In 1890, Ellen Rankin-Cop won the first medal for sculpture awarded by the Art Institute of Chicago. She created maternity on commission for the Illinois building and paylay on commission for the Hawaii building, both at the world's Colombian exposition in 1893. The 24 foot statue of paylay was promoted as the largest statue ever made by a woman. He's a great soccer player. Nice. Right. In 1874, Helen Rankin married William H. Cop. They had five sons, four died in infancy. Ellen Rankin left William Cop behind and took their son to Europe and began using her unmarried name. And 1897, Mr. Cop was angry and distraught about this separation and his own unemployment. So he attacked Ellen's parents and sister with a razor and revolver. Oh my god. Okay, this is gone. This is a wack. We'll so happy right now. Her father's throat was cut and cop was shot and nearly lost a finger in the encounter, but there were no fatalities. Oh, their surviving son Hugh Dearborn Cop called Hugh Doke Rankin after his parents separated also became an artist best known as a science fiction illustrator. Everybody's changing to a different channel on Sirius X, everyone. We're on true crime. I thought I was on rural radio. Thank you, Will. Today we're talking about Dave Bishop from Atlanta, Illinois. Dave, did you know all that stuff? Gosh, you know, I didn't know all that stuff and I live here. Dave teaches at regenerative agriculture at Heartland College. So Dave, you know, you're talking about the the man may climate change and all that the you're you're in the agriculture community. Not all farmers agree with that. Do you find that at least people are open to conversations or do you just have to find who's going to listen to you? Well, yeah, of course, I realize that not everyone agrees with all that, but it's I think it's becoming more and more evident and I'm always happy to talk about about this with people who want to talk about it. If you don't, that's fine. I mean, I respect other people's opinion. So we all see the world as we see it. So when you change things on your farm, tell us what your farm looks like today and you said your oldest son and daughter-in-law are running it. Right, we when we begin to diversify away from just corn and soybeans, we first added small grains, which was like wheat and we put a cover crop with the wheat so that we could then graze it and we found the combination of grazing and the small grain could be as profitable as this corn or soybeans and it broke up pet cycles that add fertility. They were just a whole list of advantages to having this extra crop. We did do some vegetables for a few years. We raised beef cattle, hogs and poultry, both broilers and egg layers, things that we could market locally in the community and that helps stabilize our income because prices didn't vary as much as they do when you're in the commodities market. So those are the kinds of things that we tried to move toward that would stabilize income, increase income and really make the farm a more fun place to be. Well, where are you selling everything? Well, we are fortunate that we are right in the middle of five large 100,000 population communities and so it was fairly easy to get into some local stores. We advertised, there was enough interest in people in buying locally that we could sell a cow by quarters or a pig by haves as well and eggs could be sold in the local stores. So it wasn't easy but it wasn't terribly hard to create products that people did want to buy and to market those locally. You know, I love that you were doing this and you know keeping the wealth within your own communities but you were direct marketing before, I mean everybody's doing this now, right? And everybody, you know with the pandemic everybody was interested in where their food was coming from but you started this years ago and you kind of had the forethought to know that okay we need to be doing this. Did people think you were crazy at the time? Yeah, I thought I was crazy at the time too there for a while. You know, it wasn't exactly evident that things were going to be the way they are today but we started small and we found that you could build a, you know, small group of people who want to do that and then for one thing the quality was really high and people enjoyed eating food that had that kind of flavor profile so there was the opportunity to kind of slowly build your way up. I would not want to try to do it suddenly. This was a farm conversion that occurred from 1988 and I think we became organic in 2004 so we had a long slow time of just doing side-by-side comparisons and trialing various things and I think that's probably the best way to do it even today when there is more opportunity to start out low and build up. That makes sense to me. Well it's definitely a lot of room and agriculture for all different types of way to grow stuff so Dave, I appreciate you being on a show Dave Bishop from Atlanta Illinois teaching regenerative ag over at Hartland College. Dave, thanks for being on the show but I don't want you to go anywhere because Sean Haney is coming up next. He says regenerative agriculture doesn't work in Canada. Something about moose droppings. I don't know what it is. A lot of maple syrup up there. You should stay on and talk to him. Dave, thank you very much. Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.