A millennial being a YouTube sensation may not be breaking news. But if we told you that he's a fifth generation Minnesota farmer, sharing videos about the experience of living life on a farm? That might raise a few eyebrows.
Meet Zach Johnson, who has built a following of 1.2 million people on YouTube just by sharing his day-to-day experiences on the family farm.
Johnson, who is moderating a Tuesday morning panel at Minnesota's Farmfest outside of Morgan, Minnesota, tells WCCO's Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar that his goal was only to try and explain what happens on America's farms.
"So a lot of people, you know, they get to see the farms out in the countryside," Johnson says. "But they don't really know what's going on behind the scenes. And I started to realize that there's an actual, real genuine curiosity to that. And When you put yourself out there and you be fully transparent and you show what's going on, it seems like people really, really take a liking to that. And they really cling to that and they enjoy getting to see the reality of what happens on the family farms today."
What do you see on his videos? Well, even for Johnson, that is a day-to-day mystery.
"I start out with the camera in the morning and I walk out the front door and I go to work out on the family farm," he says. "I don't know what that video is going to be like. I don't know exactly what we're going to be doing for the day. I have a general idea if we're going to be hauling grain or we're going to be harvesting soybeans or whatever it might be that day. But as you get to see, if you watch my stuff, it really is a minute-to-minute thing."
Johnson describes those daily duties as being a fireman, going from one issue to the next.
"I'm always trying to put out fires and something's always broke down or somebody's stuck," says Johnson. "Something's not working right or sometimes we have those days where everything goes really well. And I kind of joke about how that seems to make a boring video, but it sure makes my job easier."
Johnson adds that his videos also can help clear up misconceptions about farming. What was once such a common connection for people - whether it was a parent, grandparent, or more distant relative, Americans are distanced more and more from those family farms. Johnson says that while most farms are still "family owned," consolidation has made it so that there are less actual family farms than ever across the U.S.
"So when it comes to things like genetically modified seed, or irrigation, or the way we treat livestock, or herbicides, or whatever it might be, there's little pieces of information out there about those things," Johnson explains. "But as farmers, we fully understand the reason we use those management practices, and I like to highlight that and say, 'hey, here's the good things that we know about genetically modified seed or herbicides.' Or 'here's how we treat the livestock and why.' And 'here's what we know about that and here's why we do it.' And I really like to show that we are the same farm families that we've always been."
Johnson adds the technology and look of farming may also shock people unfamiliar with farming in the 21st century.
"Things might look a little bit different, machinery might be bigger, livestock herds might be larger, but we are the same families that we've always been," says Johnson. "And we love doing what we do and we take a ton of pride in that. And if we don't do things the right way, if we don't take care of the natural resources and the consumers and ourselves, that affects us much more quickly than it affects anybody else."
Farming is certainly a challenging business across the country. There are issues with prices, tariffs, immigration, and more. Johnson says there's clearly a number one challenge however.
"Well, farming right now, especially commodity farming, row crop farming around here is difficult," Johnson adds. "The crop prices don't really reflect what the input costs are. So cost of production, I think, is probably the biggest thing on everybody's minds right now."
You can find the Millennial Farmer here on his website, and across all the major social media channels in addition to his YouTube page.
You can also stream the Farmfest panel Johnson moderated on "How Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping Agriculture" here.