COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Rob Sharkey has found his audience by talking about the things people in agriculture don’t talk about.

Sharkey, a fifth-generation Illinois farmer known as the “Shark Farmer,” hosts several podcasts and TV shows on RFD-TV and PBS.

He spoke to Northwest wheat farmers during the Tri-State Grain Growers Convention in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Sharkey talked about nearly losing his Illinois hog farm in 1998 as the market collapsed. The bank recommended filing for bankruptcy, but Sharkey and his wife, Emily, decided they would pay it off instead.

The banker, “that guy that everybody borrowed money from, the guy that knew what he was doing, he called me an idiot,” Sharkey remembered. “I’ll never forget how much that hurt. The reason was, because I believed him.”

The companies Sharkey owed the money to were more understanding.

“They said, ‘No problem. Every month, give us something — if it’s $10 a month,’ and that’s what we did,” Sharkey said.

He turned to working as a white tail deer outfitter for select hunting groups.

It took seven years to pay off the debt.

“Professionally, it is one of the things I am most proud of,” Sharkey said.

Podcast guests

Today, the “Shark Farmer” podcast reaches 1 million people each week. It took off because Sharkey’s guests were just “shooting the breeze” and talking about their personal life, he said.

The most popular topics are things people in agriculture usually shy away from, from people who aren’t professional speakers, Sharkey said.

One farmer spoke about an accident that killed a four-wheel drive articulated tractor driver and left his son in a vegetative state for two years.

“Could you imagine this happening in your community, the farmer was the Big Time Operator and there was rumors about him drinking and all this stuff, nobody ever talked about it for a couple of years and then all of a sudden, you got a first-hand account that tells everything?” Sharkey said.

A local bank held a listening party for 50 people for the episode because people did not know how to access podcasts at the time, Sharkey said.  

Another guest wanted to talk about getting her “messy bun” hairstyle caught in a fertilizer truck’s power take-off shaft, taking her scalp off from the ears.

“It’s a hard podcast to listen to — I remember saying, ‘This is graphic, do you really want to talk about it?'” Sharkey said. “She said, ‘Absolutely, because I never want this to happen to anybody else.'” 

Another farmer spoke about his battle with alcoholism upon returning to the farm after competing as an Olympic high jumper.

“We don’t talk about this in ag, we don’t show our weaknesses,” Sharkey said.

For another podcast, “What the Farm,” his wife Emily and Saskatchewan farmer Lesley Kelly have Sharkey interview people who disagree with farmers, such as vegans or anti-GMO advocates.

The catch — Sharkey couldn’t argue with them.

“We listened to these people, and I heard, probably for the first time in my life, actually what they were saying,” he said.

A lot of it comes down to the individual’s personal experiences.

“They took our guard down, we took their guard down,” he said. “All of a sudden, when we knew where each other was coming from, that’s when the facts actually started coming out.”

Story of loss

Sharkey has his own hard story to tell. His son, Eian, died last summer in a car accident at 17.

“My favorite part of the day is when I wake up — it’s that part of the day before I remember that I lost my son,” he said. “Some days it’s the first few seconds, some days you get lucky and you get a half hour.”

Eian designed the Shark Farmer logo — a white tail deer skull, with sharks for the antlers.

“This logo means a lot more to me than just our brand or whatever,” Sharkey said. “It’s a little bit of my son.

“Kind of the hard part about having a podcast is when you go through something horrible, it’s out there for everybody to know,” Sharkey continued. “We don’t talk about feelings in agriculture — you definitely don’t get onstage and cry, but we made a decision that I’m just going to do it….”

He asked the audience if any of them farm with their kids. 

“I want you to remember to enjoy it,” he said. “The phrase gets thrown around a lot — ‘I’d give everything for this, that or the other.’ I’d give everything for my son to be back.

“If you’re hurting out there, you need to talk to somebody,” Sharkey said. “If it’s not your family and friends, at least get a professional. … That pain will kill you. It will eat you up. Don’t just do it for yourself, you do it for your family, you do it for your friends. Because that’s going to hurt everything, including your farm.

“Yes, it’s important to be successful in business, but is it what really matters?” Sharkey asked. 

https://sharkfarmer.com/