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

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

Farming is funny.

I can pretty much count on one hand how many people I know that just farm.

Generally, farmers have another source of income, something else they do.

Today's guest is no different.

Today, we're talking with Lucas Hill from Marseilles.

How you doing, Lucas?

- Good, how are you doing?

- Pretty good.

First of all, where is Marseilles in the once great state of Illinois?

- Yeah, so the easiest way to explain it is it's about where we're sitting in our farmstead and where the office is is about three miles, four miles south of Ottawa.

So... - Oh, I-80?

- Yes, South of I-80.

- So is that southern Illinois?

Anything south of I-80?

- (laughs) Well, I wouldn't quite say that's like when we go up to Wisconsin, they don't consider you from Wisconsin until you're north of Stevens Point.

So... - (laughs) So that's where you grew up?

- Yes, yep.

Right there.

- Farm kid?

- Farm kid, whole life.

Didn't really have any other aspirations other than that.

- What did the farm look like when you were growing up?

- So, you know, it was funny.

I always kind of tell this story is, you know, I'm always appreciative of my father who kind of kept the farm together.

But he also, like you just mentioned, you know, he had an off-farm job and a good one of that as an operator.

So he was a pretty prototypical, very... I shouldn't say not a prototypical father in the fact that he kind of took a step back and saw where my brothers and I were taking this and wanting to do and kind of let us take over, right?

Which isn't very, isn't a common theme in the ag world.

So he was working a full-time job, you know, six days a week when I was in seventh and eighth grade.

So I remember being seventh and eighth grade with my two older brothers out in the field.

We probably looked like ding-a-lings out there compared to some other farm operations.

But, you know, it... From a management perspective, you know, people laugh at me when I say this, but I mean, heck, we were calling, my brothers were calling the co-ops and things like that when he was 13, 14 years old, setting things up.

And so it started at an early age for us three.

- So to have the next generation come back to the farm is difficult enough.

I know, like one of my biggest fears is like if all three of my kids wanted to come back, oh gosh, I don't know how you do this, but here you guys are.

What, there's three brothers?

- Yes, there's three total, yep.

- And you've come back to... are y'all farming or is it all part of the farm operation?

- So both.

So we all farm.

We have another... We got a lot of LLCs, we call it, but another operation, our farming operation too that we're all involved in and then all involved in the agronomy dealership as well.

- So what is South Prairie Agronomy?

- South Prairie Agronomy.

So it started off as, you know, when at one point in time I was in a district capacity with Beck's as a salesman, and we've talked over a lot of late nights and maybe a few beers in hand or something like that over what we wanted to do in the future.

And we've always had this idea of selling seed and chem and fertilizer and servicing our customers and that's what we enjoyed doing.

So we've always talked about it, talked about it, and finally it came to fruition about three years ago.

So it was a scenario where it kind of started off as Hillboro Seed Service and then we wanted it to be something that was a larger brand, right?

So actually the 4-H group in our area is called the South Prairie Pioneers.

So that's kind of where it came from.

- You stole your name from 4-H.

- How about it?

How about it?

Yeah.

Yeah, we kind of stole it from them.

We also have a guy in our area... - America, just rip their name out.

- Yeah, we also have a guy in our area, very well known fellow who always says that any guy or any kid on the South Prairie gets one get outta jail free card.

So that's where we kind of came from too.

- Have you used yours yet?

- You know what, no, haven't had to.

So that's a good thing.

Hopefully now that I'm a dad, those days are behind me.

(both laughing) - Okay, so you guys with the South Prairie Agronomy, so you're selling seed corn, seed beans, wheat probably too.

- You betcha.

- And are you just selling Beck's Hybrids?

- Yes, yes, we're exclusively Beck's, correct.

- They're out of Atlanta, Indiana.

- You betcha.

- All right.

They're a unique company because they are... They're the biggest family owned, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

And probably one of two or three, you know, the majors I can think of like Wyffels, I can think of Beck's.

There's probably some others that are still independent.

Most of 'em are, you know, the big Corteva and Bayers and that.

- Right.

- Does that... Is that a good thing or a bad thing when it comes to selling their seed?

- You know, I think it's a great thing and especially for how we sell and how we service our customers.

I think it fits right into how we do things.

And also we're kind of... We come from the land of, I always say we come from the land of the 1,500-acre farmer, right?

You know, there's... It's not like going to certain other areas, you know, where there's a lot of big shooters on the block and that just fits the mold of our area too.

- Yeah, it is unique that, you know, I would even consider us in the Bradford area and kind of in that.

I mean, obviously you have your bigger, you know, but a lot of those are multi-family farms that get up to the four and five and 6,000 acres.

But yeah, that 1,500 kind of catches a lot of them.

And then we all have equipment that can probably farm 5,000.

- Exactly, yeah.

(both laughing) - Did you work with Beck's before you started all this?

- Yeah, so I was in a, like I said, I was in a district sales capacity with them for about five years before we took over, decided to start a dealership and man, couldn't be more thankful to the Beck's family and how it started.

I mean, they took a shot on a 22-year-old kid and you'll know, I mean, not only did they take a shot on a 22-year-old kid, but I was grateful enough to get my home area.

So once you do that, you know, and you're in that for a while, you realize how much that just doesn't happen.

You know, kids that get a job with, you know, a Corteva or Bayer based company and then they're shipped off to Iowa or Indiana or something like that.

So very, very fortunate.

- Long, long time ago I sold Golden Harvest.

- Nice.

- It wasn't.

(Lucas laughing) And I could show up at a farm and I could talk to the guy for two hours.

We just laugh and have a good time.

But I could never sell.

I couldn't sell.

I couldn't close.

I never could.

Do you have that ability?

- No, like I said, you know, I've learned a lot of things, but that was... I was, you know, I guess you could say bad at it when I first started too, and I could build the relationship piece.

But, you know, having those tough conversations at the end of trying to, you know, ask somebody basically for a check was really, really tough.

But you just learn how to create relationships with guys.

'Cause you know, seed is so much different than selling other inputs, right?

Where they're asking for your MAP or DAP or potash prices, you know, most of the time it's purely based on price, where seed is such a relationship-based input.

So, you know, it took me probably a good solid four to six years even I'd say, to really break in with a lot of guys in a relationship piece and just show your service and worth.

- Did they teach you how to do that?

Like Beck's, do they teach you how to... - Yeah, they have an awesome, awesome education program.

And I think that's kind of what sets Beck's apart from other companies too, is like, they have guys that are, you know, you look up their title on Beck's and they're an education provider or whatever it may say.

You know, you look up and actually the guy that hired me, David Ringer, he's in that capacity in that role now.

And it's like what other places have that on a regional base?

They really don't.

So they did a good job of teaching us how to do that.

- Every time I meet Scott Beck, who is the president of the company, we arm wrestle.

- Nice, how does that go?

- He always wants to.

Every time I meet him he is like, sits down and then, you know, he does this.

- Yeah, yeah.

- He just always wants a arm wrestle.

- I like that, that's an aggressive fellow.

- And I generally I have him, but what he does is he reaches under the table and he pinches like my knee and then it scares me and he wins every time.

And then he just goes around.

"I just beat Rob Sharkey in arm wrestling."

That's Scott Beck, the owner of the company.

- Yeah, that seems like right outta Sonny's playbook too.

I could see him doing something like that.

- Makes you wonder.

- Yeah, right.

(both laughing) - Legit great family though.

- Oh, awesome.

Awesome.

I tell the story too that it was just, I think it was my first year in a dealership role.

And by no means am I saying I set the world on fire and, you know, sold millions of units of seed and whatever.

And we were at a Christmas party and Sonny comes walking by and, I mean, heck, I think I was employee 700 something.

I got over a thousand now.

And you know, I just said, "Hi Sonny, how are you?"

And he goes, "Good Lucas, how are you?"

And I just was kind of... - He knew your name.

- He knew my name.

And I'm like, "How in the world has he remembered my name?"

But he did.

So that's just the type of guy he is.

- I don't even remember who you are.

- (laughs) Yeah, that's all right.

At least you got it on the card right there.

- (laughs) Farming, I mean, we just had a report.

I mean, things aren't great right now.

Are a lot of farmers, are they looking at maybe dropping some of the traits to make their seed cheaper this year?

- Yeah, absolutely.

This is probably from a non-GMO perspective side of things, this is probably going to be the highest increase of non-GMO that we've sold.

Things like that.

Cutting costs, you know?

We kind of saw this coming down the pipeline and my brothers were really kind of the leaders in this.

Saw that we need to be diversified even more.

'Cause times are gonna get tough.

'Cause four or five years ago things were pretty good, you know, and so we strip-till and we have Montag box on our... And we offer custom strip-tilling and then obviously applying fertilizer.

So we've really worked with customers on that side of things and being able to get more efficient.

So we've grown our business because of that.

You know, guys wanting to get more efficient with fertilizer and... - Explain what that is.

Strip-till.

- Yeah.

So basically what we're doing is we're building strips and we have a Krause KUHN bar, which goes a little bit deeper than other bars.

So in our head we still think we're doing some deeper tillage too, which is what we like.

Basically, you're building the mounds in which the strips that you're gonna plant directly into that following spring.

And you don't... The idea is to not touch 'em.

- Yeah, unlike me who goes in there, and I'm tilling up every inch of that soil.

You guys are just tilling that much.

And then next year you're going to, which the equipment, the auto steering, I mean, you can put it, you can dial it right on that.

- Yeah, yeah, a lot of times that's our biggest... I shouldn't say our biggest cost, but year over year, some of our biggest cost is the precision part of it.

- Yeah, yeah, there are a lot of subscriptions.

Aren't there?

- Oh yeah, yeah.

Ones that, even when you think you paid them already, you get a bill in the mail.

- I interview a lot of people that go to a strip-till and it doesn't seem like they ever go back.

- Right.

- Are you happy with it?

- Yeah.

I mean, and obviously, you know, I try to be realistic about the fact that I think there's time and place and things like that, and I get it, you know, when you get increased elevation and things change and sometimes it's not a perfect fit, but we've really enjoyed it.

You know, I say we come from the Grand Ridge area, so then as soon as that, you know, somebody says that, "Oh, you're from Grand Ridge, man, that's God's country," 145 PI.

But we're on the north skirts of Grand Ridge, the Fall River township.

- The slums.

- Yeah, exactly.

And it's been great for that, you know, Class B ground, things like that.

And we've really, really enjoyed what we did and then passed it on to our customers.

It just kind of build business organically.

- Selling seed is one thing.

Selling chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, that's a whole new ball game.

- It's a whole different deal, yeah.

- That you guys, you delve right into it.

- Yeah, we just kind of said, you know what, screw it.

We're all gonna quit our jobs.

(both laughing) We're gonna do it.

I think our parents thought we were half crazy, so did my wife, but, you know, we did it and not looking back.

And my brother Tom, the middle one, he comes from the crop protection world, you know, working for Helena and so he is very instrumental in that side of the business.

- Yeah.

Let's stick with soybeans, right?

Because of increasingly more difficult 'cause of weeds like waterhemp that the last two years I've had to put Liberty in with my fungicide, so that's a third pass.

But I don't want those... I don't want any of those weeds out there.

'Cause the seeds are gonna be super seeds next year.

- Exactly.

- So when is some new chemistry gonna come down the line to where I don't have to worry about it?

- Yeah, exactly right.

You know, Liberty Ultra just came out for a new label.

You know, things like that.

And you just keep bumping your rates up, you know, generic Liberty up to 43 ounces now, and you just keep bumping it up and bumping it up.

And the first thing I say, you know, I might have some customers watch this later on and they're gonna be yelling at me.

- Nobody's gonna watch this.

- (laughs) But in case they do... - Wouldn't worry about it.

- You know, I got some guys that are now spraying, you know, Liberty on both crops, corn and beans.

And I try to walk 'em through the process of, you know, pulling back on that as much you can, but, you know, sometimes you got weeds out there, you gotta take care of 'em.

There's nothing you can do about it.

But, you know, I think this Dicamba ruling coming down the road, I don't know if that's gonna help us or hurt us in the long run, but in the short run it's definitely going to help having a five-way stack.

- The fertilizer, the dry too, you sell.

- Yep.

- How do you compete with that?

'Cause you don't have a port on the old Illinois River.

- Yeah, yeah.

So we go through our company we work with that gets it, and basically they're our engine for application.

So anything outside of strip-till, and obviously we strip-till for our guys, but they'll get it and use our facilities and we'll apply for guys that way.

And it's worked out, worked out really well.

That's kind of a quantity discount.

- Where'd you go to school?

- So first two years I went to Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

I tried being a why college athlete for a couple of years.

- What were you doing?

- I ran cross country and track, yeah.

- Oh, why?

- I wore the short shorts.

How far do you run with that?

- Well, in college it was in cross country.

It was an 8K.

So... - Okay.

You did that for fun.

- Five miles.

- Yeah, supposedly.

(Rob laughing) I was a big sports fan growing up, so I always liked being the best at everything I did.

But then once I went to high school and we had fairly good at our high school, I realized I wasn't gonna be the best at baseball and basketball.

So on the cross country, I went.

- Just run.

- You just keep running buddy.

- Yeah, Forest (laughs).

- Yeah.

- But then you... How'd you get down to Illinois?

I assume.

- So after two years up at Oshkosh, I loved it up there.

You know, we still visit every once in a while, and I just, one of those deals where I just couldn't stay healthy, you know, I have to... Obviously you can tell I'm not the biggest guy in the world.

There's people with more athletic ability than me.

So my thing was I had to put in more miles than everybody else, which essentially I just... My body broke down and couldn't keep my legs healthy.

So Oshkosh did not have an ag program, so I kind of tried piecing one together.

So technically, this will make you laugh.

I was in the environmental science major when I was at Oshkosh trying to make an ag major.

- So you're a damn hippie.

- Yeah, exactly.

Exactly, yeah.

- Okay.

- So I eventually... My oldest brother went to ISU, a lot of friends went to ISU.

That was just kind of the natural fit.

- Great Ag school.

- Great Ag School.

- Second best Ag School in Illinois.

- Huh, I wonder what the first one is.

You must be talking Western.

(Lucas laughing) (Rob sighing) - Please.

All right.

Your wife went to U of I.

- Correct, yeah.

- Where'd you two meet?

- So actually she's from the area, so Ransom area, which is just east of there.

And we've known each other for a long time.

I'm actually on the LaSalle County Fair Board and her dad was on it, actually her dad is whose place I took when I got on it.

Funny enough, we just met through that.

- Did you, it was an election?

Did you bump him out or did he... - I should start telling him that.

- Yeah (laughs).

- Yeah.

I think he was on it long enough.

He was ready to get off.

- Yeah (laughs), but she farmed too.

- Yeah, yep.

- That a boy.

- They found farm too.

Found your girlfriend in a plat book, huh?

- Yeah, well, you know, yeah.

There's a funny story there that we could tell off air, but yeah, she did good.

- Nobody watches us.

You could tell it.

- (laughs) Yeah, no, she's awesome, man.

My wife is the coolest.

You know, I remember watching a interview you did, and I think it was maybe on the radio, talked to a guy about his daughter was coming in and farming with him.

And I remember being... Having two older brothers and farming and uncles and great uncles and grandpas were farming and stuff, you know, it's a man's job.

And so I always wanted my boy, right?

I always gotta have my boy and this is what we're gonna do.

And then I met my wife and I was like, phew, what am I talking about?

First date we went on and I remember picking her up, and I was like, "Hey, I gotta go to the shed real quick and I gotta move this gooseneck outta the way.

We're moving some stuff."

And we got to the shed and I backed up at the gooseneck and she jumped out and I'm like, "What in the world's going on?"

She jumped out and started hooking me up to my gooseneck.

And I remember saying out loud and kind of like making sure she didn't hear it.

I'm like, "I'm in love.

Like this is it," you know what I mean?

- That was it, that's all it took.

- That was it, that's all it took, one date, and then now we got a little girl of our own, and I'm like, that little girl couldn't do absolutely anything, you know, on the farm side.

- Farming's changed.

It really has.

- I mean, even from when I was a kid, there used to be a lot of more physical, heavy lifting, stuff like that.

It's everything's so precise now that you don't need to be as physically demanding as you used to.

- I'll tell you what though, my wife's mean enough though.

She could throw hay with the best of 'em.

We move cows so she's in there too.

- Oh, is that an insult or a compliment?

- No, she'll know.

She'll know.

- She'll know?

- Yeah.

- Can your wife take ya, you know what I'm saying?

- I think she could, yeah.

Hopefully I don't get her that mad ever, but yeah.

- So does she... Is she still involved with her family's farm?

- Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, they're grain, corn, soybeans as well.

And then obviously they had the cattle operation in the meat shop, so they got a lot going on.

- Oh, cattle.

- Yeah.

- Oh-oh!

- Yeah, yeah.

There was a lot of jokes there at my accord that I got told I was the cattle man, even though we've never had cattle, so... - Tell me about the meat shop.

- Yeah, so, you know, it kind of started right at COVID time the same time, you know, as people were struggling to trying to find beef in stores and things like that.

And they kind of just bought, and her dad just bought a couple of freezers together and they had a nice garage already and they put it in the garage and it's just built from there.

And now they got chopping hours every Saturday in which they sell beef and pork and chicken and Hector's syrup in there and... - Oh yeah?

- They do it all.

- COVID started so many meat shops.

People selling their own cuts of meat and that, it's crazy how that one event completely changed the beef industry.

- Yeah, it really is, it's nuts.

And taking the opportunity to do it too.

'Cause that's kind of a scary jump to make.

- Yeah, because I don't know if there's not a whole lot of competition when you talk about the major packers.

- Right, right.

(both laughing) - I'm surprised they haven't tried to crush your family's packing plant yet.

- (laughs) Yeah, right.

- It's too much.

You're (laughs) an ordained minister.

- Yeah.

- Oh dear.

Tell me, father, why would you do that?

- Yeah, yeah.

Some poor souls.

Oh, well, once again, you know, it led right into it.

It was COVID again.

One of my best buddies who's also my cousin, I remember he called me on a Wednesday afternoon and said, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend?"

I said, "Well, I guess, I don't know, I haven't thought that far out."

He's like, "Well, you wanna marry Kelly and I, my wife and I?"

And I don't have no... I'm thinking, what is this gonna be, two day process, whatever.

And one of the very simple things with dealing with Illinois, it was actually fairly easy.

It was about a 10 minute, 15 minute class I had to take.

- What did they ask you?

- Boy, that's been five years ago.

All I know is I passed.

I think they make sure I didn't have a record.

- They asked you if you used soap.

What did they do?

- I think it was to make sure my record was fairly clean.

And I was an Illinois resident and that was it.

- Probably the whole standard DUI, child support, stuff like that.

- Yeah, right, right.

(both laughing) - So I did it.

Now I've done four of 'em.

- Okay, is there like a script or do you go, you just go, "Hey, you want her?

You got her."

- I try to go by a script, you know?

I can't remember what it's called now.

Illinois.org, getordained.org, something like that.

They kind of give you a couple scripts that you can build it off of and I built it off of one of them scripts and try to say my own little story.

I meet up with each individual I've done and build a story.

- How can you get that involved in your agronomy business?

- (laughs) You know what?

- I mean, you're selling Beck's.

So I mean they're a believer family.

So you need to figure this out.

- You would make my mother-in-law's day.

'Cause she has told me that exact same thing that I need to couple it in with the agronomy dealership.

- So can she put up maybe like some scripture on each bag?

- Yeah, (laughs) that'd be a lot.

I feel like that'd be a lot of marketing work, but maybe we can get it done.

- Beck would probably help you on that, won't they?

- You have more pull than me.

- I wouldn't arm wrestle Scott though, he cheats, he cheats.

I'm saying it right here on air.

He cheats when you arm wrestle him.

- (laughs) Whatever you gotta do to win.

- I guess (laughs).

What's the future of your agronomy business?

- Yeah, so, you know, obviously we farm too.

And I think we want to, like you said earlier, we want to build that for the generations to come.

And my oldest brother's got two little boys and my middle brother's got a little boy and one on the way, and him and his wife got one on the way in May.

And obviously we got a little girl.

So, you know, we wanna continue to build this business where it's successful enough that, you know, obviously agronomy and agriculture is gonna be different in 20, 30 years, right?

So at least we're gonna give them that step stool to build whatever's coming down the pipeline.

So build the agronomy business and obviously farming's always gonna be at the core of what we do as well.

- Do you have dreams of competing against the Nutriens, the Helenas, the big boys?

- You know, I think that in our area there was a need for the one-on-one service.

You know, I mean heck, my wife and I's date nights are getting on the Ranger after getting home at work at seven o'clock at night and going and checking customer's fields.

- Sounds romantic.

- Yeah, very romantic.

I think she was about the only one that actually enjoyed it.

Only other person that would, so I'm very thankful I found her.

But yet, you know, doing that, having the one-on-one, being able to call myself or Tom or Buck after hours and you actually know who you're speaking to.

And I think there was a need for that.

And I think the Helenas and the FSS in our area has done a very good job.

But I think there was just a need for a company like we were starting.

- You know, there's a lot of people that have had a lot of success doing what you're doing, but, you know, you mentioned that, don't call me at 10 o'clock at night.

I mean, there's farmers that want that, but I mean, you gotta have a life too.

- Yeah, exactly.

And this is... We try to get away in the wintertime.

Obviously spring through fall is just non-existent.

Right?

You're not going anywhere.

But we try to get away in the wintertime and we do, I think we do a pretty good job of that, whether it's going ice fishing or snowmobiling and whatever.

We're going Commodity Classic this year, which is, that's our vacation.

- That's romantic.

- Yeah, (laughs) I'm about it.

National Farm Machinery Show is always on Valentine's Day and that's where I take my... - Good for you.

- My little pumpkin Emily.

- Yeah, we're kind of from the same fold, aren't we?

Casanovas.

- If people wanna find out more about South Prairie Agronomy, where do they go?

- Yeah.

So obviously we have a Facebook page.

We're not on TikTok yet or anything like that.

I'm not a real big TikTok guy, but you know, obviously Facebook, we do a really good job with our Facebook.

We actually work with a lady from back in our area that we know really well that helps run it.

And she keeps up to date on things.

And obviously Tom and I and Buck now too, we don't shy away from being able to take phone calls and things like that.

So... - Okay.

I suggest on your Facebook you just start doing all political posts.

- Do you think so?

- Yeah, it works out really well.

- All right.

- Gets lots of attention.

- Hey, hey, yeah.

Any marketing's good marketing, right?

Is that not what they say?

Something along those lines.

- Something like that.

Something like that.

It's pretty cool what you guys have started because that is not easy.

The competition is fierce.

You are competing against people that have a lot more bankroll behind you than you do.

- Correct.

- And it's impressive that you guys have not only started it but are succeeding it.

So yeah.

Congratulations on that.

- Thank you.

- Lucas Hill from Marseilles.

Thank you very much for being here.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

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