PEORIA MAGAZINE May 2022

Emily and Rob Sharkey with their Labrador Sammy Rob Sharkey, getting ready to livestream

“I know what I am. I’m a creative person,” if also “a competitor. I don’t like anybody beating me,” said Rob. As far as the business side, however, “this would not be a thing without Emily. This would still be me talking into a Blue microphone.” In any case, what started as “a hobby, just for fun,” then “took off.” When potential advertisers began to call, they thought they might have another business on their hands. Then media companies started to get in touch, including Ag PhD in Baltic, S.D. After driving eight hours north for what turned out to be a 10-minute meeting, “we had an XM show.” Suddenly, they were “influencers.” Rob may be something of an on-air natural, but there have been lessons along the way. For one, “Rob discovered the art of listening,” said Emily of the husband who used to walk into an interviewwith a list of questions and dutifully ask each one, until he discovered it was much more interesting to just go with the flow and respond to what his guests wanted to share. Towhat do they attribute thepodcast’s success? LEARNING THE ROPES, FEEDING THE ‘CONTENT BEAST’

“We were interviewing people who had not had a platformbefore … and I’m really funny, those two things,” he jokes. Emily, of course, sets the record straight. “I think people wanted to hear from the average farmer,” as opposed to the usual industry and corporate suspects, she said. “Everybody has a story … a turning point. It filled a void, right?” So far, they’ve been able to feed the “content beast” that their shows have become. Rob figures he’s interviewed more than 1,500 people over the last five years. The two have a f lair for finding interesting, even eccentric characters, such as Derek Klingenberg, the Kansas farmer known for playing the trombone to his cows. Some episodes bring listeners to tears. There was Chris Beaudry, the assistant coach of the Humboldt Broncos, the Canadian junior hockey teamthat lost 16 players in a horrific 2018 bus crashwith a semi. He had missed the trip because he was “a farmer doing chores that day.” It was Beaudrywho got the call from the coroner, asking him “to come identify the bodies …because I was the only one left,” he told the Sharkeys. “I didn’t breathe through that one,” said Emily. NO SIDESTEPPING Meanwhile, Rob doesn’t shy away fromcontroversial or politically charged

FOLLOW THE SHARKEYS on their website (https://sharkfarmer.com), on Facebook (Rob Sharkey – The SharkFarmer), on Instagram (sharkeyfarms), on YouTube Shark Farmer, on Twitter (SharkFarmer@sf28430), on LinkedIn and on TikTok (@sharkfarmer).

topics, from isolation andmental health on the farm to substance abuse in rural areas to gay farmers. They tackle issues of gender (such as the trend of women returning to farms as owners/ operators), of technology (such as GMO products), of the environment (fertilizer and other chemical use), of animal treatment (the notion out there “that we’re all smacking our cows”), of climate, of government farm policy, of corporate influence. Sometimes they take a neutral stance, sometimes they’ll address the miscon ceptions they perceive on both sides, but “when we started talking about it, nobody (else) wanted to touch it.” There have been some real conver sation starters.

42 MAY 2022 P EORIA MAGAZINE