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

My name is Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth-generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

But today, today is not about me.

Today is about Rodney Connor.

How you doing, Rodney?

- I'm great.

Thanks for having me.

- Dwight, Illinois.

- Yes, sir.

- Yeah, that's my favorite character on "The Office."

- Yeah, he's a good one.

That's right.

- He's yours, too?

- He's one of 'em, yeah.

I like Jim.

I'm a Jim guy.

- You look like a Jim guy.

- (laughs) Maybe.

- Honestly, it says a lot that you would pick Jim.

- Does it?

- [Both] Yeah.

- Yeah, he's the joker.

I like the jokers, for sure.

- Okay, he's a popular one.

I mean, you're just going that way.

- Yeah.

- We should probably talk about you, though.

(both laughing) Where is Dwight for the people that don't know?

- We're about 80 miles south of Chicago right on 55.

- Okay, your family farm, though, is in Blackstone?

- Blackstone, Illinois, yeah.

- [Rob] I've never heard of that.

- You never been?

- [Rob] No, is it very big?

- No, I think there's 40 people in the town, or used to be, but it used to be the home to Blackstone, or to Applegate Furniture, which was like regionally pretty famous.

People came from all over.

- [Rob] Applegate Furniture?

- Yeah, so my mom worked there for a long time.

- Okay.

- But that's about 10 miles west of Dwight.

It's a post office and a few houses.

- No dollar store?

- No dollar store.

- Does Dwight have a dollar store?

- Yeah, yeah, we have something.

Family Dollar, I think.

We got a lot in Dwight.

- All right, well, good for you.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Someday maybe Bradford will get one, but until then- - Haven't gotten there.

- Here we are.

- Yeah.

- You grew up on a farm?

Farm kid?

- Did, yep, yep.

- Okay, I mean, kind of the stereotype, doing chores and all that stuff?

- So, not really.

I think Dad, we helped out a little bit.

I remember I ran the rotary a whole lot on the 4020, but that was about all the skill I had out on the farm.

- You can shift gears in a 4020.

That's a pretty good skillset, though.

- Yeah, for sure I can do that, yeah.

- You know there's three reverses on a 4020?

- Makes sense.

I can see the shifter.

It's been a while, but yeah, that makes sense.

Is there three or two?

- Technically there's two, but if you pull hard enough, there's actually three.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- It's a little, it's a little tip.

- Gotcha.

All right, I didn't know that.

- So did you wanna go back to the farm?

- You know, we just weren't that encouraged to work on the farm when we were younger, so, no, actually I went to school to make video games.

I was gonna make video games for a living back then.

- Video games.

- That's right.

Yeah.

That was so, like, to date me, I graduated in '98.

Video games were very popular.

I was into computers and art, so I was, you know, kind of an art major.

- Okay.

You're kind of taking me back.

'98, I'm trying to think of the popular video games.

- Yeah.

So when I was in school in 2000, The Sims was just coming out and I remember I had a college professor that was like, "This is the dumbest game.

This will never"- - It's not a game.

- It's what, a lifestyle?

- I don't know what it is, but, oh.

- Yeah, you don't know.

Yeah, exactly.

- You don't shoot people or anything, it's... - No, right.

That's right.

- That's what you were into.

- I wasn't, but I remember people were, and I had a professor that was like, "Hey guys, don't get involved in this.

This is the end."

And now, I mean, that made its way through.

- It's still pretty popular.

- Oh, it's super popular.

Yeah.

- What is the the best video game of all times?

- You gotta go with like Halo.

I'm a big Grand Theft Auto guy.

- Mm-hmm.

I mean, you could make an argument that it's a Pac-Man.

- Yeah, you could.

Yeah, sure.

- But I'm like you.

- It's not my cup of tea.

- Actually, I would say probably the game changer was probably Grand Theft Auto.

- Grand Theft Auto changed everything.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

And continued to, you know?

- Wolfenstein.

- Yeah, Wolfenstein is a good one, yeah.

Super Mario.

I mean, I'm old school.

Super Mario Brothers.

- Yeah, that's, I mean, yeah.

You can't throw them out too.

- So my nephew got a Nintendo when they were like throwback, right?

I don't know, around 2000, probably.

And he was struggling on level one of Super Mario Brothers and he asked me to come down and he asked me if I knew how to play Super Mario Brothers.

And I beat the game in 20 minutes and he couldn't believe what was happening.

- From like, never playing it before?

- Never, never.

It was, I mean, it was memory.

- Oh, okay.

- From being a kid.

- Yeah, I gotcha.

- It comes right back.

- Does it?

- Yeah.

- It's like riding a bike?

- It is.

You should try it.

- What about Contra?

Were you ever into Contra?

- I don't know a Contra.

- It was a video game.

Nintendo, it was a big one.

- Like contraband?

- Yeah, it was like a Vietnam kind of shooting game.

- No, I never, I never did.

I had Grand Theft Auto and then what was the, oh, Borderlands.

I played that game until I couldn't see anymore.

- Gotcha.

You know, actually the best game?

I'm sorry, I'm gonna retract my statement.

Resident Evil is the greatest video game of all time.

- I never played it.

- Yeah.

Break that out.

- Welcome to video game chat.

(both laughing) - Yeah.

- Okay, so you wanted to build those games.

That's right.

- Which, I mean, those guys, it's amazing watching the credits on those video games.

They're bigger than movie credits.

- That's right.

- So there's a lot of money in there.

- Yeah, I'd say, I think at the time, video games were either surpassing or getting ready to surpass movies in like net revenue.

- Really?

- back in the 2000s, yeah.

And Chicago was a big hub.

So I'm a local guy, kind of.

We always, my wife and I knew we would wanna stay local and the plan was to find a job for a video game company in Chicago.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Didn't work out.

- [Rob] Can't you do that anywhere?

- Not in 2000, you couldn't.

- Oh, that's true.

Yeah.

- Things have changed.

- Well, what happened to the video game dream?

- So my senior year in college was 9/11, and actually I was in Chicago when that happened.

I remember I was driving out to a production company that I was working for at the time, looking in my rear view, afraid that something was gonna happen to the Sears Tower.

And I remember that like it was yesterday.

I could see the Sears Tower and it just decimated really discretionary spending.

It was, everyone stopped with discretionary spending post 9/11.

And I mean, the way I remember it, I'm sure it's not exactly right.

All those video game companies closed down within two or three months.

They were over.

- Yeah.

I remember that.

It was like months afterwards.

The big push of commercials, go out and spend, please people, spend money 'cause everybody just... - Yeah.

- We were scared.

- People were scared.

- Yeah.

- So they were hoarding money, hoarding things, right?

And people didn't spend money.

And I think at the time, you know, those video game companies were probably pretty highly leveraged, so they just didn't stand it.

- Ah, okay.

- Yep.

- You mentioned your wife.

Where did you meet her?

- Grade school.

We went to grade school together.

We didn't date in grade school, but we are high school sweethearts.

Going on 20 years of marriage here this summer.

- So I also went to a small school where 13 of us went from kindergarten to senior.

At what point do you look at her and go, "Okay, this could work."

- Well, it was my sophomore year, I guess.

I don't know that I ever thought- - [Rob] Did it take you that long to get the courage to like, make the move?

- You know how it is.

Small school.

I just dated all of her friends first.

- I went outside.

- Oh, did you?

All right, yeah.

- I figured genetically, I probably better.

- (laughing) Yeah, I don't know.

We were good friends.

And I remember a friend-of-a-friend, like an adult at the time, saying like, "Why don't you date that Wall girl?"

And I was like, "Nah, we're friends."

And they're like, "That's what marriage is all about."

So hey, we went in, we did not go into that intending to get married, but it worked out.

- How long you been married?

- 20 Years this June.

- 20 Years.

How many kids?

- Three.

Three daughters.

- Oof.

- It's fun, man.

I love it.

I love everything about it.

- It sounds like it's just because you've never had a boy.

- I wouldn't know how to raise boys.

I'm a boy.

I know what I'd do, but I wouldn't know how to raise a boy.

- Do you ever like sit in your house at night and go, "I am just outnumbered"?

- Well yeah, all the time.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

What's different now is boys are starting to show up.

My oldest is 16.

- Oh yeah.

- So we got some boys starting to show up, but that's fun.

- Are you okay with it, or are you out there cleaning your shotgun and all that stuff?

- Nah, I'm not crazy.

I like the kids.

They're fun kids.

I'll tell you what, high school kids today are much better than when I was in school.

- [Rob] Yeah?

- They're great kids to hang out with.

- Eh, that's a, an opinion.

Everybody has one, right?

- (laughing) Yeah, yeah.

- All right.

So you decided not to make video games.

What did you do then?

- So I wouldn't say, I decided not to make video games.

- [Rob] The world decided you were not gonna make video games.

- So I actually, I moved back to Dwight where I went to school.

I got a job working for a internet service provider back in that day.

I think it was 48 lines of dial up is what we had.

- [Rob] The dial up.

Oh, that sound.

That sound haunts me.

- Yeah, exactly.

So I was in a room full of those, made websites for like local businesses, tried to sell that.

It was actually in the back of a liquor store is where this ISP was ran.

Small town stuff, right?

- Sounds legit.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) - So on Friday afternoons I would go out and run the cash register just for little bit.

- At the liquor store?

- Yeah, just because it was part of the thing.

Yeah.

(Rob wheezing) - I think there's a whole lot more to that story than you're letting on.

- No, no, there's not, but I am getting somewhere with it.

So one Friday a guy walks in and he's like, "What are you doing working at this liquor store?"

right?

Like, Friday afternoon.

I was always in a good mood 'cause I was sat back in this office.

- [Rob] 'cause you were drunk.

- No, no drinking on the job.

I was stuck back in this office and we'd come back and you know, check people out for two hours or whatever.

But anyway, I'm standing there one day and a guy walks through, it was Tom Legner.

He says, "Hey, what are you doing working here?"

I'm like, eh, "I run this ISP outta the back."

And he says, "Why don't you come work for us at Cargill?"

at the time.

So that is how you go- - [Rob] And you knew what Cargill was?

- Not really, man.

- Really?

- I mean, so we didn't do business with Cargill.

You know, we did some local co-ops and yeah.

Cargill wasn't on my radar.

- Okay.

- I probably generally knew about 'em, but.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, that's how you make the transition from video games to grain origination.

- So we've had grain originators on the show before.

I still don't know what you do.

But like, as a farmer, when I need to sell stuff, I call you or you call me.

- Yeah, that's right.

So a good grain originator has relationships with farmers and tries to find opportunities where the farmer makes money and the grain company makes money.

- You don't really care about the farmer though.

- Oh, we really do.

We really do.

I know people think that.

We really do.

Yeah, just because of long term relationships, right?

Like, it doesn't make sense to try to kind of hurt a guy on one trade.

- [Rob] Just hurt 'em on the short term.

- Yeah, they're lifetime customers.

Actually, I've been out of the cash grain business for four years now.

I still have lots of awesome customers that I did business with for a long time that we talk on the phone.

- But how do you go from video games to learning about corn and soybean markets?

Because that's fairly detailed.

- It's super detailed.

- Yeah.

- It is.

Yeah, it's a skill.

So I remember when I first started at Cargill, one of our merchandisers, his name was Jerry Baker.

He's a great guy, still in the industry.

And he was teaching me the grain business.

And I thought, "I'll never understand all this."

Like, "No way can I ever understand this."

And I asked him one time, I was like, "How do you know all this stuff?"

And he goes, "Hey, it just takes time."

He goes, at the time, he's like, "I've been doing this for eight years.

Takes time to learn the business.

You'll learn it, just study it", right?

And about eight years later, I had enough origination at some grain company and some young grain buyer comes up to me and he is like, "Man, how do I learn all this stuff?"

You know, "How would I ever get this?"

And I said, "Well, you just gotta do it."

And turns out it was about eight years into my career that he said that to me, so I thought that was cool.

- Okay.

I'm gonna make a stereotype.

- Sure.

- About grain and market people.

- For sure.

- It's a short-lived career.

It seems like you get past 10 years, it's a rarity.

Do you get burnout on it?

- You get burned out.

It's a tough career.

I mean, it's sales.

Look, things go wrong, right?

Think about all the logistical problems you've had delivering grain.

- [Rob] Never made a problem.

Never had a mistake.

Always sold right.

Everything's wonderful.

- Yeah, yeah.

To me, it's a little bit like being a politician.

Like, even with your best intentions, bad things are gonna happen and just over time, it just.. - [Rob] So you take bribes.

- No, no, no.

You try to do the best you can and you know, my best customers that I still have relationships, they know that you can't predict what futures markets do.

You can't predict anything.

All you can do is do the best you can with the information you got.

- Yeah.

Exactly.

When did you start working for Indigo Ag?

- Indigo?

I've been at Indigo for four years.

- [Rob] Okay.

What is that?

- So we're a ag tech startup.

We deal in a few things, but mostly in scaling sustainability for the industry, so- - [Rob] Scaling sustainability.

- That's right, yeah.

- I've been farming my whole life, I have no idea what you just said.

- Well, you've probably been farming pretty sustainably, right?

- We're still going.

- Yeah, exactly.

Right.

So what we do is we capture those farm practices and turn 'em into, you know, hopefully premiums for farmers that are doing those practices.

- Okay.

I'm gonna lay out a scenario.

You tell me if I'm right or wrong.

- You bet.

- So there's lots of ways to farm.

- Correct.

- Some of it, you could like literally plow up every acre.

You could use as many inputs as possible and you can grow a crop, or you can maybe do no-till, minimal till, stuff that's easier on the ground.

Do your fertilizer in a band so you aren't using so much.

So you look at that and you say, all right, that's better for the world and we want to get a farmer some money for doing those practices, instead of just going after the profit.

Am I anywhere near close?

- Instead of the farmer going after the profit?

I mean, everybody needs to be profitable for it to scale.

- Yeah, I'm gonna destroy my farm, but I'm gonna make the most money in the short run.

- Yeah, exactly.

We're looking for long-term profitability here, for sure.

I think the thing that's really changed, you know, about the sustainability side, as of really lately, is the Scope 3 emissions tracking that these companies have to have.

- [Rob] Scope 3... - Scope 3 emissions.

So when you're a consumer packaged goods company, there's pressure, well, consumer package goods in my world, but all public companies have pressure to track their impact on the environment.

It's called Scope 3.

Scope 3 is really hard to do.

You have to have a direct relationship with the people that supply stuff for you.

That can be easy in a lot of, you know, industries.

In ag, it's really hard.

So what they need to know is through this supply chain, so maybe you raise grain, you sold it to a co-op, and then the co-op sells it to, you know, some food company.

Right?

- Okay.

- It's hard to trace those practices through the supply chain.

What we're doing at Indigo is making it possible to trace those Scope 3 quantities through that supply chain.

- But I don't care.

It leaves a farm and I have the check.

I don't care anymore.

- Yeah, that's why you need to get paid for it, right?

- Okay.

- That's what we're here to do.

- I like that part.

- Something you get paid for.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So.

that's a big company, Indigo Ag.

- Yeah, we're still considered a startup, but I think we're 600 employees, something like that.

- So of the people that you work with, all the people at Indigo Ag, which person do you like the least?

(Rodney laughing) - I know you're targeting the name Dan Mehochko, but that would not be true.

He's a good friend of mine.

- Dan Mehochko is a good friend of yours.

- He is, yeah.

- Dan Mehochko has been on this show before.

- I didn't know that until we were here.

- Generally when that happens, we would put his name like underneath the screen.

But honestly, I just, I don't care.

- (laughing) That's too bad.

He's here watching.

- And that's on you.

- Yeah.

- Isn't it?

- It is, yeah.

- So, what's the bag here?

Because we asked you to bring some, Emily, my wife, asked you to bring something to put on the desk that represents I don't know what, and you brought probably what was in your backseat.

- No, I did think about this.

I consulted with my daughters.

We thought about this, hard.

- You thought about - I did.

- Bringing a backpack.

- I did.

- Okay.

- So the reason I brought this is I never leave that backpack at home.

It goes everywhere with me.

- [Rob] Really?

What's in it?

- So I've got computer, some cables, some notebook where I can jot down ideas.

Yeah, you're welcome to dig through it, whatever.

Nothing too personal.

- I don't think we can show all this on air.

- (laughs) So what that backpack allows me to do is really do whatever I want from wherever I want.

So that backpack lets me work on the farm.

My brother calls me the intern.

He says I always look like an intern, hopping into the combine in the fall, when I got this backpack on.

- Do you do one strap or two?

- One strap, for sure.

- You know the kids nowadays, they put both of 'em on.

- Yeah.

I can't do it.

Maybe if I'm running through the airport or something, I'll do that, but... - Okay, it's not a very big backpack.

- It's pretty small, yeah.

You gotta stay trim.

I go through a lot of airport security too, so you gotta be careful what you put in there.

- Do you have the pre-check, the TSA pre-check?

- Oh yeah.

It's a no-brainer, but now they want you to, pre-check is nothing now.

You have to have Clear.

- Clear?

- It's like another $200 in background checks.

- The pre-checks like 75 bucks, right?

- Yeah, right.

- 'Cause mine ran out.

They don't tell you that it's gonna run out until you show up and you try to go through.

- Yeah.

- And they say, "Get to the back of the line or get probed."

- Yeah.

- So, yeah.

I guess I gotta check out the Clear too.

- Well, they're just gonna hit you for more money.

So I thought pre-check was the way you get through the airport faster.

Now Clear people cut in front of the pre-check people, so we're middle around now.

- [Rob] Clear because you can't see 'em.

- I guess.

- Clear people.

I guess.

I saw 'em go in front of me.

(both laughing) - What were we talking about?

- I don't know.

- Okay, yeah, Indigo Ag.

So, okay.

There's a big thing in agriculture about carbon credits, right?

And getting that money back to the actual producer, the farmer.

Is that ever gonna come to fruition?

- Yeah, I think so.

Again, the industry seems to be gravitating towards these Scope 3 emissions, rather than the carbon side of things.

So they're both really popular.

Scope 3 is about how much carbon you use to create stuff.

Carbon credits can have a little bit of a bad rap.

Like, the worst case for a carbon credit is when some like terrible polluter just buys carbon credits to offset the pollution that they continue to do, right?

Scope 3 is more about making changes inside that actual supply chain.

So where I get into this, the only reason I am, you know, hopefully valuable to a company like Indigo (chuckling) we'll find out, is we tie those Scope 3 emissions directly to grain contracts.

So that's what really helps.

So my background in, you know, cash grain is kind of my connection to Indigo's view on sustainability.

- Okay.

HR department or do they know you're here?

- They do, yeah.

I ran it past 'em.

- And they're okay with that?

- They're good with that, yeah.

- Okay.

Okay.

Like, tell me something bad about Indigo.

(Rodney laughing) - Hey, indigo has made mistakes in the past.

I'll tell you that.

We own our bad.

- Specific mistakes.

How about mistakes that are gonna come out in the future?

You got any of those?

- I don't have any of those, no.

I think the mistakes we've made are very public.

Yeah.

- It's a funny time in agriculture.

Things are good, but yet now, there's a lot of uncertainty.

We're seeing some of these big companies are going under.

Does it worry a person like yourself?

And I'm not just talking about Indigo, but someone like yourself that is deciding which sector of agriculture to work in.

Because honestly, I couldn't tell you which companies are gonna be here and gonna be gone in the next five years.

- Yeah, agriculture is in a very interesting place right now, right?

We've been waiting for this transition of older farmers to the next generation for how long now?

- [Rob] They keep farming.

- It's not happening.

- they're 80 years old and they keep farming.

- Yeah.

I don't know how far away that is.

I do think agriculture's gonna stay the same as it has, right?

It continues to stays the same in a lot of ways, but I do think we have a change coming at some point.

I couldn't tell you within 10 years when that actually happens.

But agriculture runs different than, you know, most industries.

And you know, the beauty of Indigo is, we're super diverse.

People come from all kinds of different industries, right?

Like, there are a ton of ag guys at Indigo and these people from different industries are really shocked at the way agriculture runs today.

- [Rob] Okay, so you hate agriculture?

- No, I love agriculture, man.

I'm a farmer.

I love dealing with farmers.

But there's some changes I think that need to come.

- You volunteer at a local level.

The president of the Economic Development Council.

- I was.

- What is that?

- I was.

- You were?

You were impeached?

- So a couple years ago, I had to step away from that.

Just working at a startup just takes a a lot of time, but... - [Rob] Gotcha.

What's with the barbecue competitions?

- Yeah, so I run a KCBS barbecue competition.

- [Rob] What's KCBS?

- Kansas City Barbecue Society.

It's a big deal.

It's like a huge barbecue competition that we run in Dwight, Illinois.

- Are we, are you lying to me?

Is this a real thing?

- It's a real thing.

- Kansas City Barbecue Society?

- You never heard of KCBS?

- No.

- It's huge.

So there are guys that run all over the country to compete.

It's like a NASCAR kind of, you know... - IS That the dry or the moist?

- So Kansas City's moist, yeah.

- Okay.

- There is another one, I can't remember what it is.

It's dry.

- I think that's on the list of words I'm not supposed to say.

(both laughing) Okay, so do you actually barbecue yourself or do you just, - I don't!

- You judge it?

- No, I don't even get to judge!

So I got put in charge of this because of the Dwight Economic Alliance, right?

The development council.

We were trying to bring tourism into Dwight, so we started this big national competition and yeah, I signed up for it only to find out that you have to bring in trained judges.

Like, they're certified judges that have taken classes that come into judge it, so.

- [Rob] You're kidding me.

And they get paid for that?

- So I don't pay 'em, but they get free barbecue for it.

Yeah, it's a hobby for them, it's a hobby for the cooks, but we pay out our prize pool.

So it's coming up in May.

Our prize pool's about $8,000 for the weekend.

- Nice!

- So, big deal.

- And you own a couple businesses?

What do you own?

- We do.

So my wife is a massage therapist.

She owns a business in Dwight there.

- [Rob] I bet that's relaxing.

- I don't.

I'm sure it is for the people that get massaged.

- Do you do that like, every night she walks by and like, can you like grind on the old, those trapezoids or whatever.

- Not really.

Sometimes.

If I complain that I don't get massages, I do.

But if I want a massage, she says, "Yeah, I'll make an appointment with one of my girls."

That's how it works, so.

I don't get those.

And then we own a gym in town, so me and a few others own a gym.

- Okay, and you graduated from the Illinois Ag Leadership Foundation 2018.

- 2018.

So I followed you up, right?

You were 16.

- Yeah, it takes a lot of time.

Why go through all that?

- It's a big commitment.

You know, like I said, I went to school for video games.

At the time, I had been in the ag industry for about 15 years and just felt like I needed, you know, some more specific ag training.

You know, everything I knew was grain, so I really felt like that Illinois Ag Leadership would kind of broaden my horizons in the ag industry and it certainly did.

- Did it?

- Yeah.

Or did hanging around just a bunch of people who are like, go-getters.

Did that help?

- It's a combination of both, yeah.

I mean, what I learned in the class is very useful.

A lot of that wasn't super useful that day, right?

'Cause it was outside of my industry, but since then, I've been able to draw parallels.

But yeah, the network you create, the friends I've made.

Yeah.

They really push you.

- Rodney Connor from Dwight Illinois, farming outside of Blackstone.

Thank you for coming, Rodney.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.