(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) - Welcome to "A Shot Of Ag".

I'm your Host, Rob Sharkey.

They say the world is ruled by those who show up.

Well, today's guest is proof of that.

Today, we're talking with Kent Kleinschmidt from Emden, Illinois.

How you doing, Kent?

- I'm doing good.

- Did I say it right, Emden?

- You did.

- Okay, where is that?

- Basically about straight south of here.

We're about 15 miles north, straight north of Lincoln, or 15 miles straight west of McLean.

- Gotcha.

You farm down there, is that where you grew up?

- I live like two miles from where I grew up.

We farm in Taswell, Logan and McLean Counties.

We actually live in, barely into Logan County.

Where I grew up was barely in the Taswell County.

And my wife's from McLean County, so we farm ground over in McLean County.

- So your farm ground is probably more level than this desk.

- Some of it is, and some of it's more like that.

- Must be rough (chuckles).

- We have combination of soils, soil types, and slopes.

So I always tell people, on a dry year, the flat black stuff does really good.

On a really wet year, the rolling stuff doesn't have water stand on it, so it'll out yield flat black stuff that water can't get off of quick enough, so it's kind of nice to have the combination.

- Now are you farming or are you retired?

And be honest.

- So I retired on paper as my wife put it, about three years ago.

Our youngest son is farming full time.

We did a five year transition where I was turning over 20% of the ground a year to him.

So he was easing his way into it, and then I was easing my way out of it.

And at the end of the five years, he was farming everything and I am only getting portions of the ground that we own now.

- Okay, I don't think I've ever heard that done before.

It seems like a common sense way to do it for both sides.

- Yeah, it's not like I quit totally and then I've got a bunch of income without expenses, to offset it for tax wise.

And that way, he could build some equity in and I didn't want him to start farming and have a bunch of debt to start with, so that's what we came up with and it worked well.

- So when I bought my dad out, basically, we had someone come in and appraise the equipment and then dad said, "Well, if you buy this, we'll do it over 10 years, no interest.

And then you can have everything."

And the more I got thinking about that, because it's intimidating at a young age to take on that much debt.

But then, it's like even a log chain, I've never bought a log chain, and then you find out how expensive they are, but yet dad always had 'em there.

All the stuff you get with a farm, people seem to forget how much that's worth too.

- Yeah, and my dad retired and I bought machinery from him over several years again, so we were kind of used to that.

So yeah, like you're saying, tools, log chains, stuff like that, that's just there, it's like I'm not gonna make my son pay for that.

And some of it came from my dad I didn't pay for, so it's just part of the operation.

- Yeah, yeah, well, okay.

You went to Southern, huh?

- Yep, went outta high school down there for four years.

Got a degree in general ag 'cause I was planning on coming back to farm, and that was what happened.

- Where'd you meet Sara?

- We met in high school.

She's two years younger than me.

- Oh, you rascal.

- She's, yeah, we started going out March of my senior year.

So that fall after that, I went to Southern, so we had a long distance relationship for the next two years and then she joined me.

- Yeah, but she's dating a college guy at that point, right?

- Yeah.

- So she thinks it's cool.

- But I'm dating a high school girl, but whatever.

And anyway- - Roles were a little different back then.

- Yeah, so she followed me down there and she was a math major.

And then I graduated.

Southern was on quarters at that time, and I graduated a quarter early, so she was down there a quarter without me and then we got married that following summer.

So then she switched to ISU and she commuted to ISU to finish her degree then.

- Oh wow, that was nice of her.

- Yeah, so.

- Yeah, how long you been married?

- This summer, it'll be 52 years.

- 52 years.

- I know I look like I got married when I was 10, but whatever.

- Kent, I do the jokes, okay?

- Oh, sorry.

(Kent and Rob laugh) - 52 years, that's amazing.

What is the secret?

- Tolerance because- - Be careful, she's listening.

- I know.

- Yeah.

- She'll agree with me because I do stuff that she's not happy with and she does stuff I'm not happy with.

- What does she do that you can't stand?

- I can't say.

- That's how you gotta be married for 52 years (laughs).

Now, you came back to farm.

You farmed with your dad, correct?

- Yes, and we farmed together, and then he retired when he was 65, but then he helped me much like I am now, spring and fall.

And then he passed away in 2000.

So then I basically farmed on my own for several years until my son started helping and now he's full-time.

So it's kind of been different.

I was the helper, and then I was the boss, and I was the only guy, and then I was the boss, and now I'm the other guy, so, just the helper guy now.

- You know, I worked for my dad too.

Now my oldest son works for me.

And it's amazing that like my dad was always wrong and now my son is always wrong.

- Yeah, you'll have that.

It's the hardest thing I think about that is just, I was always the one ordering seed and it's like, okay.

It's like I'll just step away and let him do that.

And so some of those management decisions that I don't have to make anymore, it's hard to give up.

But after you do and you do it a couple years, it's like, okay, I don't have to worry about that.

- But you know what, you know, because you screwed up in farming, right?

And now, you are gonna watch him screw up.

Is that tough?

- A little bit.

- Yeah.

- I mean, it is because he doesn't always do things like I did it, so.

- Sometimes, that's good.

- Well, yeah, I mean like the technology stuff, he's way better at that than I am.

- I believe you.

- Yeah.

But there's other stuff that he's never run our sprayer and he doesn't want to, so he's already told me, "As soon as you retire from spraying, it'll all get hired done."

'Cause he doesn't want do that.

So to save money, I'm gonna keep spraying.

- Yeah, no kidding.

Okay, do you mow the ditches?

Who does that?

- He started doing that last year.

- Okay.

- I'd always done that.

And it's like my wife actually pushed that.

She goes, "You know, Chad could be doing that."

I go, "Yeah, you're right."

- That's what I wanna do, just retire and I'll just mow the ditches.

- Well, see, that's not a fun job for me, so.

- Oh, I don't mind it.

I'm gonna start mowing like in mid-April.

- Good for you.

Have you seen the price of diesel?

- I don't care.

It'd be the son's at that point.

Okay, you're very involved in off-farm stuff, off-farm leadership.

You've done a lot of things.

At one point, you were the State President of the Illinois Corn, is that right?

- Yeah, I'll go back before that.

In high school and college, I did not get involved with, I never wanted to be running something, be president of anything or whatever.

And when we got married, and we were young, and we were part of the Farm Bureau Young Farmers at that time, now it's Young Leaders.

And I got involved, and then I went through ALOT and got some training there.

- It's Illinois Ag Leaders Of Tomorrow, it's a farm bureau leadership.

It teaches you how to be more of a leader.

- Yeah, and to get involved.

And so anyway, I did that, and I went right from there into Illinois Ag Leadership Foundation.

And I guess I got confidence that I could do some of that stuff.

- Well, and for people that, because we're talking acronyms that we know, but Illinois Ag Leadership, I equate that it's almost like a master's program for leadership in agriculture.

Yeah, two year program.

- And it's a mix of ag business people and ag farmers.

And so it's a interesting mix because yeah, I would sit there and think of a question and then some banker or insurance guy would ask a question.

It's like, "I would've never thought of asking that."

So it's a good mix of people.

Anyway, I got- - What year did you go through ALOT?

- The second one, like '86.

- Oh, back in the day.

- Yeah, second class.

- Okay, all right.

- A long time ago.

- Where'd you go?

- Well, in state, we went to Chicago and St.

Louis and Champagne.

- They didn't do international back then?

- Yeah, and then the national trip was to DC and we went to Knoxville, Tennessee, and through the Carolinas.

Internationally, we went to Japan and Taiwan.

- Oh.

- So I thought, "I'm a young farmer, I'll never be in this part of the world again."

Turned out I was wrong.

- You went back to Japan?

- And Taiwan two more times.

- For leadership stuff?

- When I was on a Corn Marking Board, they fund USAPEEC and USMEF and Grains Council.

And I went on a meat export federation trip that went to Japan and Taiwan.

And then a few years later, Grains Council, a trip that went to Japan, Taiwan, and they threw in China, so it was interesting.

Different, out of your normal comfort zone, I guess.

- Well, I mean, listen to this whole thing before you get mad at me.

You're a farmer from Emden, right?

You're gonna farm there and whatever.

When have you ever gone to a place like China and Japan?

And that's what this leadership offers you, and it's not like a reason to do it, but it's for the people that haven't done it, sometimes they look, oh, they're just traveling.

No, it's not, it's a lot more to that.

You're actually doing things there to promote agriculture back here.

- Grains Council trip was in the wet fall, late fall was '10 or '09.

- '09, yep.

- So I went the next November, December.

So we had just finished the next harvest.

So we were there to tell our customers that what we just harvested was good quality and they had to put up with '09 crop that was not the best.

- [Rob] It was pretty rough, yeah.

- Yes, so we were there to assure them that we had good quality corn coming to them in the future, so those were some tough meetings.

- Yeah.

- One tip I'll give to you and other people, if you go to another country and they're using an interpreter, if you wanna find out if they really know English, tell a little joke.

And if they laugh immediately, you know that they can hear and understand English, and they used the interpreter for a few seconds to think of their answer.

If you ask 'em a question and they listen to the interpreter, they've already heard it.

- What if you're just not that funny?

- Well, that's on you I guess.

- Did you do that?

Did you like slip in a joke?

- I did.

- And they were like, "Ah, that guy right there."

- By accident, and then they started laughing.

I thought, "Okay, they understand English."

So that's my tip for the day.

- Okay, that's good to know.

You only learned that on PBS.

- Yeah.

(Rob chuckles) - Okay, so you were the president of the Corn Growers?

- Yep.

- Yeah, and is that a one year term?

- A one year term.

- Okay.

- And I will recommend that by the time you're president, they have you well versed in what you need to know.

So by the time you're president, you're doing radio or TV interviews, or in person.

You know your stuff, so they do a good job of giving you background information.

- I mean, just with this interview here, you're doing a really good job of communicating.

Is that natural or you've always been able to do that, or have you kind of learned it with this leadership stuff?

- I've learned it with that.

- Yeah.

- I got a story, I'll tell it later, but we did some leadership training or speaking training and one of the tips was do visuals.

So I brought a visual with me and there's a story to go along with that.

But to be animated and just have something to show, I mean, you do a good job of having something to show.

So, tips like that, I've picked up through the years.

- That's actually really good advice.

I just make fun of people for 30 minutes at a time.

- Okay, yeah.

- Alright, let's talk about 3010.

- Okay, so years ago, the Federal Government Department of Transportation was going to implement a whole bunch of rules that applied from semis all the way down, and it basically would've, if you had a wagon that '60s model, '60s era.

- [Rob] That's like what, a 200?

- 200 bushel.

- Oh, 200 a little far.

- 200 bushel wagon would've been under the same things, same rules as a semi, so lights, and turn signals, and all this stuff.

- Well, who are you to question the government?

- So Ray LaHood was the Director of Transportation in the Obama administration, and he'd been my congressman, so I knew him, and we had a meeting with him.

So I took the advice of having visuals.

So I took some pictures like that.

I stood beside this 1962, 3010 John Deere tractor my dad bought new and a 200 bushel wagon, and I said, "Here's what would be under the guidelines the same as a semi."

I said, "This is ridiculous."

So I passed my pictures around the room, and before we left, Ray goes, "Can I keep some of those pictures?"

- I said, "Sure."

- You look good in that picture.

- I assume that- - That's how you're married 52 years.

Look at that.

- I assume that some of my pictures are still in the archives of Department of Transportation.

And they dropped those recommendations too, by the way, so I was- - A 3010 is a great tractor.

- I thought I was part of the solution to the problem.

- Okay, well, talk about visuals, look at this bad boy.

That doesn't come off, does it?

- It does.

- Oh - It's heavy.

- Well, well, all right.

Yeah, I'll just talk about it.

- So, Illinois Corn Growers gives a World of Corn Award every year.

- The World of Corn Award.

- And I won this in I think '17.

But you mentioned I was President of Illinois Corn Growers.

I was the Chairman of the Corn Marketing Board, which is also a corn organization.

So I had done both, and I'd been on our county corn growers.

So it's a reward for putting your time in and doing a good job.

- Yeah, so the World of Corn Award, you gotta be careful when you say that 'cause I mean, it's a phallic looking thing as it is.

- I'm not gonna touch that.

That's up to you.

- It's PBS (laughs).

Well, it says something about you, obviously your leadership was valued by other people, so that has to make you feel good.

- Yeah, I also got Farm Bureau or Prairie Farmer Master Farmer Award, which is kind of a award that they give for involvement in more than one organization.

So I've done stuff with Farm Bureau and also corn.

- Do you bribe judges for that?

- I do not.

- Okay.

- Didn't even know who the judges were.

- It probably helps.

Am I dreaming or do you get like a jacket for that like the golf people?

- No.

- Oh, okay.

- You get a plaque.

And the original one, the emblem was made out of gold.

Now it is not.

- [Rob] Actual gold?

- Gold.

- Well, you can hock that thing.

- Yeah, well, that was in '30s I think when they started that, so mine is not made out of gold.

- Ah, 'cause it's like $1,000 an ounce right now.

- Yeah, I thought about bringing that, but it would've taken up more room on the desk.

- Yeah, it was a good joke too.

It'll probably be cut out, but I thought it was funny (laughs).

All right, there is a show in agriculture every year since I've known.

It is called "Commodity Classic".

It's where the checkoff groups like corn, soybeans, wheat, I don't know, well, they all get together.

They had their meetings and they decided to put those all into one big meeting.

Now, I've always known it as a thing, but you, how did you get involved with that?

- So I was on a National Corn Growers Board at the time, and the corn growers had their own summer meeting called the Corn Classic.

And then they switch it to a winter meeting.

It was Corn Classic.

The soybean expo was always in the summer.

And somebody had the idea of putting them together because in most cases, I raised corn, soybeans.

Yeah, you raised corn, soybeans.

A lot of us are the same people.

And they were getting pressure from the advertisers, the companies that they didn't wanna go to two different shows.

It'd be more economical for them to go to one instead of two, so it made economic sense.

So I was on the steering committee to look at that to see if it was feasible to put 'em together.

And we decided it was.

So then they went forward and then I was on the very first commodity classic committee and I was the, a co-chair with another guy from Iowa representing soybeans the first two years of the show, so it started.

We just had our 30th year.

So it's been going for 30 years.

And so I'm very proud of being part of that.

And it's stuck around for 30 years.

It's actually grown.

The name was chosen for a reason.

They didn't have to change the name.

It could have been Corn Soy Classic, but it was Commodity Classic.

So then they added a couple more commodities, and now they've had the equipment manufacturer, so the trade show is huge now.

So it's a very good show and I recommend people go to that if they can.

- [Rob] Do you still go to it?

- I went this year to celebrate the 30th year.

- San Antonio, right?

- It was San Antonio.

I don't go every year.

Now I kind of pick my places that I wanna go to and pay to go to.

- They're going to New Orleans next year?

- I believe so, yes.

- Yeah, that's hit or miss.

- It'll be a good show.

- It's pretty warm in March compared to back here.

- And they try to go to warm places in the wintertime.

It's usually at the end of February.

- Yeah, so when you're doing this, was there any machismo?

Was there any, "Oh, corn is more important than beans," that type of thing.

- The biggest hangup was corn had been already a winter meeting and soybeans had been a summer meeting.

So the biggest hurdle we had to get over was soybean guys on the committee thought we need to have things for kids and wives.

And we go, "It's during the school year, the kids won't be there, or they're at preschool and you don't have to have activities for them."

And in a lot of cases, my wife was one, teachers are spouses, so they can't go to that in the wintertime.

So that was the biggest hurdle.

But as far as the commodities themselves, no, it's like we're the same guys, I mean.

- Yeah, it's funny how things have changed, hasn't it?

Now we got almost as much women coming back as men to farms.

All that thinking is kind of, it has to evolve.

- It has, I've seen that in organization, farm organizations, there's women involved now, which is great because, we're all just people - They're probably better than us at farming and stuff.

- Supposedly, women are better marketers because they don't have the attachment to grains.

- I was gonna say, it doesn't take much to do better than probably you and I.

- Well, yeah.

(Rob laughs) - So if you have someone that is thinking about getting involved in stuff like this and it's a time commitment and you got stuff to do on your farm.

I mean, what advice do you give 'em?

- I tell people to get involved, and there's lots of choices.

There's general farm organizations like Farm Bureau I've been involved with, but there's corn, soybeans, beef, pork, wheat, there's lots of commodity organizations.

- [Rob] The Farmers Union.

- Yes.

- [Rob] I forgot that one.

- All those, I'm not a member of that one.

But there's lots of places for people to get involved because it's always nice to be involved with something that's not in your own backyard.

You meet people from other parts of the state, other states, other countries, so it gives you a better idea what's going on in the world rather than your own little circle and who you visit with in your coffee shop at home, so it expands your horizons.

- You look back on your life and was it the right decision to come back to the farm?

- Absolutely, I always wanted to farm, so my parents gave me the opportunity to do that.

And we're given that opportunity to one of our sons now, so it's a great place to raise kids and yep.

- I always thought it'd be cool, and I've gotten to this point where I'm sitting in a tractor planting corn and I'm looking across the field and I'm seeing my son plant soybeans.

I thought this is what it's all about.

But all I do is worried about, well, is he doing that right?

- That's one thing, you just gotta let go.

- [Rob] Okay, that sounds easy.

- Well, I talked about retiring, but I should have done it sooner than I did.

But what I found is it's easier to keep doing what you're doing than to start thinking about how am I gonna do all this?

We've got two sons and what's fair to the family as a whole rather than just one.

And so it's easier to just keep doing what you're doing and not retire, but that's not fair to the next generation to hang on too long and not let them get going and build their future.

- Well, you said your dad was 65.

How old were you when your son got done with it?

- So I was like 70.

- Okay.

- 80 is not an old farmer anymore.

I mean, and it's because I don't know, I look at this picture with you and your 3010 and you know all the hard work that you used to do now.

I mean, the calves now are nice.

You got the auto steer.

It is a lot easier to do it.

And it's like you've worked your whole life to get to this point, and now I'm supposed to just walk away.

- That's why I'm still involved.

- Yeah.

- I still enjoy doing that.

- Yeah.

Well, I tell you what, I lost my dad, besides the advice and information, it was like just the running for a part or getting the seed to the planter type of thing.

- So I'm doing that stuff now.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But for several years, I did it by myself.

So then it's like, okay, do I plant today?

Do I spray today?

And so it's a lot less stress and hours on me now, even though I'm still doing stuff that there's two of us to do stuff.

- You probably didn't have pro boxes either.

- No, no, everything went in with a bag.

- Yes (laughs).

- Yeah.

- That's the worst part of the planting season is the very last field where you're opening bags, like this is so dumb.

- Forklifts, and pallets, and pro boxes take a whole lot of work out of planting.

- Are you on TikTok?

- No.

- Yeah, it's a shocker.

Is there any place?

- Is that because of my age?

- Is there any place where people can get ahold of you?

- You want my phone number?

- No, no.

- My email?

- Yeah, what's that?

- Ksklein713@gmail.com.

- Good lord, they're gonna have to put that on the bottom.

- Ksklein713@gmail.com.

- Okay, let's wait a second as the people are writing that down.

- Okay, nobody will be writing it down.

- Get me a pen!

- Nobody will- - A pen!

- Nobody will be writing it down.

- I hope you get flooded with the emails.

Well, Kent, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, not just because you're a person in agriculture, but because someone that was willing to give up their time and leadership and make agriculture a better place.

So Kent Kleinschmidt from Emden, Illinois.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

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

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