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10 CapitalPress.com Friday, February 14, 2020 Spokane Ag Expo ‘Shark Farmer’ offers encouragement to FFA members By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press SPOKANE — The best time to be in agriculture is now. That was the message Rob Sharkey, an Illinois corn and soybean farmer, delivered to 900 FFA students Feb. 6 at the Spokane Ag Show. Sharkey produces the weekly “Shark Farm” pod- cast, is co-host of the “What the Farm” podcast and hosts the “Shark Farmer” radio show on Sirius XM. “I can’t believe how impressive people your age are, and I don’t say that lightly because I don’t like kids,” Sharkey told the FFA members, to chuckles from the audience. He talked about the ready access to information avail- able to farmers and youth today. “You can do anything, and you have got so many pre- conceived ideas that have not been put in your head like my generation did,” he said. When kids today go to school and have a bad day, the bad day continues because of Matthew Weaver/Capital Press Matthew Weaver/Capital Press From left, Liberty FFA students Ava Budde, Emma Kate Bartels, Cassin Pittmann and Carson Tee chat with Rob Sharkey for his “Shark Farmer” podcast Feb. 6 during the Spokane Ag Show. Sharkey’s wife and producer, Em- ily Sharkey stands at right. Illinois farmer and podcaster Rob Sharkey addresses FFA students Feb. 6 during the Spokane Ag Show. social media, Sharkey said. But many students have fig- ured out how to navigate that and excel, he said. “I can’t give your genera- tion enough credit for what you’ve done and the circum- stances you’ve grown up in,” he said. “To me you are the most impressive generation I have ever seen ... so you bet- ter not screw that up.” Sharkey asked students what they most wanted to accomplish in the next five years, and then told them how quickly plans can change. He dreamed of follow- ing his father’s footsteps as a farmer, but started raising hogs in 1998, right as the market collapsed. He and wife, Emily, were deep in debt, to the point where the bank advised they file for bankruptcy. The couple discussed it one night and into the early morning. “I walked over, I took her face in my hands and said, ‘Look, whether I’m a farmer or not doesn’t matter, as long as I’m your husband and you’re my wife, we’re going to get through this,’” Sharkey recalled. An hour or so later, Emily told him they weren’t filing for bankruptcy. They called the bank and said they intended to repay everything they owed. It took seven years. “Seven years of literally being broke, and I mean broke. We didn’t have credit cards or operating notes left, we didn’t go out, my (car) broke down, I rode a bike to the farm in the middle of winter in Illinois,” Sharkey said. Sharkey began his podcast three years ago. He got started on Twitter, and quickly found a rapidly growing audience. He estimates the radio show has 150,000 listeners each day, and the podcast has 30,000 downloads in the first 30 days. “I just talk to the average people in agriculture, not pro- fessional speakers,” he said. He’s also gained support from some people who were originally critics of agriculture. Those critics are now advo- cates of agriculture, he said. “We do it by listening, not by sitting there and preaching,” he said. Sharkey also spoke to farm- ers about the stigma of men- tal health prior to the economic forecast Feb. 5. “There’s a lot of stress, anx- iety and depression in agricul- ture, and it’s OK to talk about it,” he said. “If somebody gets sick and has cancer, what do farmers do? We all take our combines and harvest his crop. Neighbors stop by and feed his cattle. You hear somebody is having anxiety or depres- sion, what do we do? You look the other way. It’s like a poi- son almost. But that has got to stop.” Sharkey praised the Spo- kane Ag Show. “This is something pretty special, and I’ve been so impressed over the last couple days,” he said. “You guys are really here to learn, network and communicate.” Economist: Only crisis will push wheat prices above $5.50 U.S. losing share in global wheat market By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press Pacific Northwest Waterways Association Fairfield, Wash., wheat grower Marci Green and her family were featured in the “Faces of the Snake River” campaign against breaching dams on the river. She was honored last week at the Spokane Ag Show for her contributions to Washington agriculture. Washington wheat farmer honored for excellence Green to growers: Be politically active By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press Fairfield, Wash., wheat farmer Marci Green received the Excellence in Agricul- ture award this week from the Spokane Ag Show. In accepting the award, she urged fellow farmers to raise their voices in Olympia and Washington, D.C. During a recent meeting in Olympia, Green asked state Rep. J.T. Wilcox, R-Yelm, what farmers can do for legislators and pol- icy makers. She repeated his response. “He said, ‘We need agri- culture to be politically active,’” Green said. “You don’t necessarily have to go run for office, but make our voices heard,” she continued. “Write letters. Call your legislators. Send emails. If there’s a hearing on a bill that you’re passion- ate about, go to Olympia and testify at the hearing. A lot of times, when there’s issues that are important to us, the other side is very politically active. They’re there, they’re protesting and they’re making their voices heard. We need to make our voices heard as well.” Green farms with her husband, Lonnie, the sixth generation on her family’s farm. Her two sons recently returned to the farm. She is national legisla- tive chair, public informa- tion chair and past president of Washington Association of Wheat Growers, repre- senting farmers in Olympia and Washington, D.C. She also serves on the Spokane County Wheat Growers and her community church. “I want to thank my fel- low farmers for trusting me enough to let me repre- sent you,” Green said while receiving the award Feb. 5. The award recognizes individuals or organizations who make a significant con- tribution to agriculture in the Inland Northwest. The selection commit- tee considers four criteria — innovation in agriculture, economic and environmen- tal stewardship contribu- tion to agriculture, positive impact on agriculture and industry awareness and outreach. SPOKANE — It’s going to take a produc- tion crisis somewhere to push wheat prices higher than $5.50 per bushel, said Randy Fortenbery, Wash- ington State University small grains economist. USDA projects a national average wheat price of $4.55 per bushel, and doesn’t forecast much change in the next 10 years. “The positive part of this is that this is the low- est price,” Fortenbery said. “The really negative part of it is, we never get to $5.50 over the next 10 years. This is a worst-case scenario.” To arrive at that pro- jection, USDA assumes all global farmers have a great crop, yields con- tinue to improve and acres remain the same, Forten- bery said. That’s not neces- sarily a likely scenario for the entire decade, he said. Washington wheat farmers have seen their highest prices in the last four years. That’s not the case elsewhere in the coun- try, Fortenbery said. “Even though prices here are not attractive, rel- ative to everybody else, we’re actually not doing too bad,” he said. Given current mar- ket conditions, Fortenbery expects a range of 50 cents per bushel higher or lower, Matthew Weaver/Capital Press Randy Fortenbery, small grains economist at Washington State Univer- sity, delivers his econom- ic forecast Feb. 5 during the Spokane Ag Show. driven by global produc- tion and consumption. “We need somebody to have a huge produc- tion issue that allows those stocks to drop signifi- cantly, and that’s what’s going to raise the price in the U.S.,” Fortenbery said. U.S. wheat acres have declined, as have all prin- cipal crop acres, as farm- ers convert to alterna- tive or non-traditional crops. Fortenbery pointed to increased hemp acre- age in Montana and Ore- gon. Hemp is not a princi- pal crop. But the world wheat supply is still large, Forten- bery said. Of concern is that the U.S. share of the global wheat market is projected to decline, from a high of 15.5% to below 13%. “The smaller our share of world trade, the less influence we have on world price,” Fortenbery said. Farm sector profits for 2019 are about 10% higher than 2019. But most commodities still face significant price compression compared to several years ago. The resolution of sev- eral trade disputes has pro- vided some market sta- bility, depending on the market. Fortenbery offered caveats. “USMCA, for most agricultural products, really isn’t that different from NAFTA — what it did is get us back on the footing we had before,” Fortenbery said. The first phase of an agreement with China is a “timeout,” Fortenbery said. It doesn’t improve the trade arrangement, but it ends banter about increas- ing tariffs moving forward. But China now faces health crises with the coro- navirus, which may affect its ability to purchase some of the agricultural items it’s committed to buy under the agreement, including soybeans, wheat and pork. “If they don’t meet these expectations, do we assume they’re reneging and we go back to the friction we had before?” Fortenbery said. “Or do we assume it’s a humanitarian issue and they will meet these targets eventually?” U.S. livestock prices will benefit from international problems, such as fires in Australia, but they do not seem to have affected crop prices yet, Fortenbery said. Fortenbery spoke Feb. 5 during the Spokane Ag Show. CLOUD NINE FOR MIDWEEK EVENT PLANNERS. WE SPECIALIZE IN BULK BAGS! 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