Millennial Farmer Zach Johnson, west central Minnesota

Shay

Foulk: Hey podcast, in today's episode, Shay talks with Zach Johnson from West Central Minnesota, also known as the Millennial Farmer on social media, about everything from Minnesota crop conditions to YouTube and farm transition to basis. This is one you don't want to miss. Enjoy. Welcome everyone to the Aggie Pitch. My name is Shay Foulk, and I'm here with special guest Zach Johnson from West Central Minnesota. How are you today, Zach?

Zach

Johnson: I am good, Shay. How are you?

Shay

Foulk: Not too bad. It's a little hotter down here in Illinois than I think it is up there for you. We're looking at a high of 94. I think the weather in your area looks a lot better than that.

Zach

Johnson: That's, that's a little bit warmer. Yesterday I did see 94 on the temperature in my pickup. It was pretty warm. We've been warm, but I don't think we're hitting the temps you guys are.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, right. So I was wondering if you could tell us just a little bit about yourself. We'll have some discussion on how the crops are in your area and then talk a little bit about some of the other things you have going on in your world. So tell us about you.

Zach

Johnson: Well, I'm a fifth generation farmer. Right now it's just Dad and I full time on the farm. We farm about 2,600 acres of corn and soybeans in west central Minnesota. Still farming a lot of the same land that great-great-grandpa came over from Sweden in the 1870s and staked his claim out here. So just trying to keep it going, do the best we can and doing the family farm thing.

Shay

Foulk: So 5th generation farmer, that's incredible there at home. And you mentioned to your dad, do you have any other siblings or anyone else in the family that's involved in the operation?

Zach

Johnson: No, I've got one younger brother, that'd be the only sibling I've got. And he actually lives up in Moorhead, Minnesota near Fargo, and he doesn't work on the farm with us. Once in a while, if we, if we need an extra hand, he'll, he'll run down for a few days, but he's got his own, his own career going on up there.

Shay

Foulk: Great. No, that's awesome. And I think what I'll do here is give just a little bit of introduction to what we do, not only to give you a little bit of background, but for anyone that's listening out there. So the Ag View Pitch that we're doing now is put on by Ag View Solutions. So that's myself, Chris and Alyssa Barron. And we work with producers on a variety of topics. So Chris has been consulting for a couple decades now, specifically on profit management. He developed a tool called Profit Manager. He works with farm transitions, different collaborations, and speaks on everything from a nitrogen application tool that he built to collaborations of 6 or 7 businesses kind of into a single operation. And one other thing that we've been doing is working with peer groups. So we get a group of 6 to 8 operations together of progressive growers.

We've been doing this for 4 or 5 years now. And we've been loving it. We meet a couple times a year and it's just awesome to bring kind of a variety of farmers together. So I know you're big on farmer-to-farmer learning and just getting a complete look into an operation and saying, hey, this is what we think you could be doing better and what we think you're doing right. We've seen a lot of value out of the peer group. So, and we're based, Ag View Solutions is based in Northeast Iowa. And our whole goal really is to provide perspective to our clients and the producers throughout the countryside, particularly with this podcast that we've been doing for the last few months.

You know, we do markets, we work with agronomy, talk about production and crop updates and, and do some story profiles a little bit like what, what I'm going to be asking you some of the stuff on today, just again, to add perspective and give people a look at what else is going on throughout the country and the world. So that, that's a little bit of background kind of on what we do. I want to jump in here real quick, go back to the conversation about your farm operation. Can you tell me a little bit more about what specifically the roles and responsibilities are for you in your farm operation?

Zach

Johnson: Well, kind of generally everything, you know, like I say, it's just Dad and I full time. We have one guy that helps us out a lot. I guess I call him part-time. He's really just out here. He loves to work and he's out here whenever we need him. Then we got some seasonal help. When it comes to the work that I do specifically, you know, there's a lot of financial management that goes into farming. And I work a lot with that, especially particularly in the winter. We've got a farm business management guy that I've worked with for about 13 years, actually had gotten into a role with him, kind of working on the possibility of taking over his business and working with other farmers to put together cash flows and financial analysis.

And kind of when this, when this YouTube thing happened and the Millennial Farmer took off on me, I got way too busy with all of that, that I've kind of put that financial management stuff on the back burner for now. We still do a little bit with it, or I do anyway, but that's a big role of, of mine in the farm is staying on top of that. And you know, the general everyday management of stuff really is is kind of split between dad and I. His strength, no doubt, is marketing. He's a really good grain marketer. I lean on him a lot to, to market our grain correctly, and I learned a lot from him. But that's a big role of his. I handle a lot of the, the seed orders and the fertilizer decisions when it comes to the grid sampling and stuff.

And, and really just the, you know, the day-to-day labor that it takes whether we're we're hauling grain out or, or spending time in the fields, whether we're in the sprayer or the planter. The planter seems to be my job. Dad is a lot better at running the sprayer and, and I run the planter a lot. When it comes to harvest, we pretty well split the responsibilities up, you know, everything, no matter what you do, at some point, you're going to get sick and tired of the long hours doing that. So we shuffle around quite a bit. We both kind of jump in and out of what whatever needs to get done.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. And I think just from listening to you describe that there, to me it feels like you have a pretty good pulse on who does what job. And that's really important that a lot of the operations that we look into, there's sometimes, uh, disclarity on who needs to be doing exactly what. But if you know, hey, Dad is primary on marketing, I'm primary on planting and the financials, it, it's interesting for me to hear kind of how that division takes place there. And one note that I want to make on the financial side of things that you were talking about, that might be 80% of the work when it comes to farming, but maybe about 10% of the fun. Would you agree on that?

Zach

Johnson: I would generally agree, you know, neither dad or I really mind doing, doing bookwork or paperwork or whatever you want to call it. It's computer work now, I guess, but Neither dad or I really mind that. He's always taught me the importance of staying on top of a cash flow and watching your expenditures and making sure that whatever you invest in, whether it be machinery or drain tile or grain bins or whatever it is, you got to know what the return on the investment is going to be and whether you really need to do that or not. And so that's always been, been pretty important. He's always been really good at that. So Um, but yeah, you're, you're right. It's, it's not as much fun as just getting out there and, and going to work. After a couple days in the office, a guy really is, is itching to get out there and get some work done.

Shay

Foulk: It's good for your mental health.

Zach

Johnson: That's right.

Shay

Foulk: Yep.

Zach

Johnson: So the screen—

Shay

Foulk: and we'll, we'll jump into, you know, some that you've alluded to it a couple times here with the YouTube channel and things like that. Uh, one, one note that I want to make kind of while we're here though is When you originally started doing the YouTube channel, as long as I understand this correctly, you just wanted to, you know, get out there like, hey, this is agriculture, there's a lot of good things that we're doing out here, and, and steer away from some of the negativity associated with that. And you've become very educational, informative for a lot of the people that listen. And it might be interesting sometime just to do a video, and maybe you have that I've missed, but to do a video on that of, hey, you know, there is all this financials that go on behind the scenes here, and this is what we're doing a lot of the time.

But just, just a quick thought that popped into my head there.

Zach

Johnson: So yeah, you know, I've been asked a lot about talking about farm finances, and I'd really love to do it. The, the issue that I have, and I've actually started that video about 3 times, I've never finished it. And the biggest issue I have is that, you know, if you're going to do a good job of explaining it, where do you start with, you know, the inflows and the outflows of money here and money there and where it's all at at any given time and, and the cycle of it? It's just not, you know, you can break it down and make it really, really simple. And then of course, you're going to get ridiculed online about making it too simple. And what about this and that? And, and, you know, you can make it as complicated as you want and you'll be over most people's heads.

They aren't even going to understand it in I think including some farmers, you know, everybody does certain things differently. That's definitely something I've learned by working with several farmers when it comes to finances is that, you know, you drive by the operations and a farm looks like a farm. But the fact is that everybody, you know, below the surface is so much different in what goes on in their operation. And, and that doesn't ever make anything necessarily right or wrong. It just means that we, we all operate a little bit differently.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm. And I think that's a great point, certainly. You know, if and when you ever decide to do that, I'm sure you would do a great job at that. And looking at some of your, you know, your initial work that you were putting out, and you, I mean, you would articulate it very well. And the reason I say that is when you started this, kind of what I saw in that is you were just, you know, you're just telling your story. You're just documenting that. And so whether you get ridicule based from that or not, I think you would do just fine at that. So, you know, you mentioned the marketing there that your dad is kind of primary grain marketer. What, what are the primary markets in your area? And where are they located?

Zach

Johnson: Well, we've got, you know, we've got our co-ops that are located on the rail like most areas have, and then we are fortunate enough to have multiple different ethanol plants to choose from. So we've got, oh, 3, 4, maybe 5 ethanol plants here kind of within, within about an hour and a half drive time, or an hour maybe. And we do have— now we've got some livestock farmers we've looked at selling to. We've been selling to a hog farmer a little bit. But mainly, I would say the ethanol sales has been where it's at for us for about the last 5, 6, 7 years now that that is where At least 90% of our corn has gone to the ethanol plants as of recent.

Shay

Foulk: So a little bit on markets associated with that. How's basis in your area? And what have you seen maybe the last week or week and a half or so, in a little bit of the volatility that's been in the markets? How's that affecting your operation?

Zach

Johnson: Right now our basis is as tight as I've seen it in my lifetime. And that is really just within the last couple of weeks here. I don't know for sure why that is. Dad and I were talking about that this morning. You know, I can't believe that there's a ton of farmers out there that are sitting on grain that haven't moved that stuff. So I'm not sure exactly why that is. But it seems that the ethanol plants and the hog producers are getting nervous. They want to make sure they've got enough corn around up until middle of October to make sure they got, they got the grain until harvest starts rolling in. I don't know why it's gotten so tight. We sold some at 10 under Chicago a couple days ago here, which is the tightest that my dad's ever sold any in his entire career. And now we've got an ethanol plant that's down at 15 under. So I just, I don't know why that is for sure.

But we've definitely tightened up quite a bit right now.

Shay

Foulk: How, how's the crops look in your region? And I say that from the perspective of you know, with the ethanol basis being that tight, are people worried in relation to how the crops look? Or how's your growing season been so far? We'll jump into that a little bit.

Zach

Johnson: You know, I did wonder if just the general worry was part of what's driving that basis. But when I drive around in my township and in my county, I would say the corn is inconsistent. It's up and down. It's not going to be that, that killer yield that we've had about 3 times in the last 5 years. It's, It's just not going to be. But when you step back and you really look at it, it doesn't look that bad. I would say 95% of the acres got in around here. That would include corn and soybeans. And, and I really don't think it looks that bad. I think that we're just not used to looking at an average crop anymore right now. So when we see a crop in West Central Minnesota that looks average because we've had such, such good crops the last few years. I think it's easy for us to look at it and say it doesn't look good. And that's just because we're not used to looking at it.

That's my personal feeling. But most of the acres in my county did get in without too much of a problem. But you don't have to go very far to the west of me. And south of me, I was through Johnson, Clinton, Graceville area the other day, and some areas in there look really poor. There's a lot of fields that didn't get planted, a lot of short corn.. And if you go south of there, I traveled just about all the way down to Sioux Falls. And the whole way, I would guess, I would guess an average of maybe 20% of the fields were not planted, just taking that the main highway to the south. And that was over 150 miles. So I would, you know, there's pretty significant acreage missing there. On the, on the other hand, I went east the other day, went through Minneapolis and went south on 35 down to southeastern Iowa. And from, from Minneapolis to Iowa City, I thought the crops all looked pretty good.

Again, maybe a little inconsistent compared to what we're used to looking at the last few years. But overall, the acres are there. I think— I don't know, I'm, I'm optimistic that there's more acres there than, than what the general feeling or the belief is. I don't know if there's 92 million acres like USDA is saying, but But it's— there's corn out there.

Shay

Foulk: Right. What, you know, I think you had a great point there on we don't know what an average— or in our near-term memory, we forget what an average crop looks like. And we have had 3 to 4 years of exceptional corn growing conditions in particular over the last 3 or 4 years. So maybe it is just a little bit of shock, a little bit of reset back to reality on that. You mentioned short corn. What is short corn in your area? How far behind were you on planting within that region? And what would you consider short corn as a departure from normal this time of year?

Zach

Johnson: Well, you know, we had— we finished planting our last cornfield May 17th, which really isn't that late for us. It feels late because we like to have— I mean, personally, I like to have everything planted between April 20th and May 1st. So we were a couple weeks late on what I wanted. But when you compare it to average, well, I would guess our average date of planting corn, the last date would be May 12th to 15th, somewhere in there. The— what, what, what the other side of it is, is that we were going to plant another, another 150, maybe 200 acres of corn. But on the 18th, it started raining and we didn't get in the field for over 2 weeks again. So the beans are, you know, they started out farther behind than any of the corn when you look at it that way. But there was still corn going in a little bit going in, in June yet in our area. And some of that's pretty short.

You can tell the roots don't go as deep. If we get, if we get 4 or 5 days without rain, which is rare, I think it's only happened once all spring. You could actually see some of the leaves starting to twist a little bit on that, saying that it was too dry. But man, for the most part, I don't know that we've hardly gone 3 or 4 days without rain all spring. It's thundering out again now. And I'm looking at radar, and we're definitely going to get some more rain here this morning again. So, you know, overall, I think the crops are catching up. I think July has so far been pretty warm. We've got corn just this morning, the first corn I've seen right outside my office window here. So it's protected by the yard, but it's the first stuff I've seen starting to shoot some tassels out. So that's good.

There's a lot of corn though, that is about chest high in my area, you know, so like I say, it's inconsistent. We've got 10-foot corn and we've got chest-high corn. But either way, it's getting to the point where it's all gonna— it's all growing so fast now that it's taking off and I think we're going to be okay if we have, if we have any little bit of extra heat. I think to me, it's too early to tell. It's too early to say that we're going to have a wet corn all fall. But, you know, it wouldn't surprise me, but it's too early to really lean on that and say our corn is not going to dry down.

Shay

Foulk: You're going to be making a lot of people throughout the Corn Belt jealous talking about rain every 3 days and getting planted by May 17th here, Zach. That's pretty, pretty phenomenal. And my question goes back to how wet were you in the fall? And what did your spring look like up until that, that planting window there in May?

Zach

Johnson: We, I would say we've been a little bit wet for the last year. We were a little wetter in the fall than what we'd like to be. But it wasn't to the point where I mean, we didn't struggle bad. We were pretty fortunate that way. It was a more difficult fall than, than some of the ones we've had in the last 5, 6, 7 years. But there again, I think, you know, that's just what we get. We fought a little bit of mud, but it wasn't bad. We had a ton of snow. I would say there's no doubt we had as we had as much snow as I've seen since 1997. So we had, we were running out of places to pile it. It was, it was crazy. The edges of my driveway were about 4 feet deep. We were— we definitely had a lot of snow. And it never really seemed to quit. We did have some openings the end of April, we put corn in, it was so cold. We were debating whether we really should do it or not.

But we put it in and, and I don't regret it. I mean, we didn't have any areas where it looked like they sat cold and wet and the, and the seed didn't germinate. I mean, it all looked pretty good to me. You know, I get less and less scared every year of putting corn into cold, wet soil because it just seems like I do a little bit of it every year, and I've never been burned by it. And I just keep putting more and more in because that corn seems to be the first stuff ready, the first driest stuff, and it doesn't seem to hurt me on yield. I don't know if that's just our, our earlier day genetics we have up here or what the deal is. But I guess that's, that's kind of been my feeling as of late.

Shay

Foulk: A lot of people have that same sentiment with that stuff planted mid to late April. From Central Illinois north of— typically that's pretty early, but they've been very happy, kind of depending on what conditions you're planted into there, with how those are looking right now. And for a little bit of background, are your soils in your area sandy loam soils?

Zach

Johnson: No, they're a pretty heavy clay, really black dirt, a lot of topsoil with tight yellow clay underneath it.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, interesting. And the reason I ask is because some of the soils, especially through the Corn Belt from northeast Iowa over to Ohio, the sandier regions have actually looked a lot better this year, because they were able to handle the moisture that we got in our area. So I didn't know how that compared to what you're seeing. Another question that I have, after hearing you talk there, is what maturities are you planting for corn in your area?

Zach

Johnson: So I would say in our area, the average is about 90 to 100 days. There's a lot of 92 to 96, 97-day corn out there. We've got a 92-day hybrid that we love that is pretty awesome. We planted a lot of it for the last 3, 4 years now. But we do go up. A lot of guys won't look at 100-day corn, they'll cut off at 99. We've got a 101-day corn that we have really had good luck with the last 2 years. It's an early 101, it flowers early, and it dries down quick. So it works for us. What I'm, what I'm told by the, the guys that sell it is that you get an hour south of us, and they don't like it. It's too early. It's too early of a maturity, it dries down too quick. For us, it's been really good. So we're kind of in that 90 to 100-day range.

Shay

Foulk: Finding the right product for the right area, that makes sense.

Zach

Johnson: That's right.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. So what's the disease pressure look like right now? You mentioned you've been having some rains. Have you seen anything too crazy there? And then what are you looking at for fungicide applications here moving into the next few weeks?

Zach

Johnson: You know, the biggest disease issues around us would be in the corn, it would be Goss's wilt. And in the beans, it would be white mold. We are on 30-inch rows with our beans, and we plant them at a little bit of a lower population than most people would, and that seems to help our white mold issue quite a bit. But we don't spray for white mold. We do have some people in our area who do spray for white mold, but we don't. So the only fungicide we apply actually is a generic Quadris that we'll put on, you know, later in the season, but to this point, our beans are so short, we don't have anything canopied right now yet, you know, with those 30-inch rows. So we haven't seen any, any big pressure on with the white mold at this point. And, you know, the Goss's wilt is pretty tough to see until later in the season.

And fungicide on corn for us, we did test some last year and thought maybe we saw some small gains, but I guess that they weren't convincing enough to me to say that we need to apply everything with fungicides. So we're doing some testing again with it, but we're not doing a pretty widespread fungicide application on our corn. So we don't have a huge fungicide program just because we don't believe that we've seen huge gains from it. That being said, the generic Quadris is the one that I would say, you know, about half the years, we're pretty convinced that we do see some gains from that.

Shay

Foulk: Interesting. Are you worried about the stature of the beans moving into, you know, the rest of the season here?

Zach

Johnson: We're pretty far north. We've had late beans before. And I've seen them turn out pretty, pretty good. You know, we've planted, we planted a fair amount of, of June beans, maybe not a fair amount, but we've definitely planted June beans before and seen them yield right up there with the rest of them. So I, you know, I don't like driving down the road and seeing short beans, especially when you get south of here and things look nicer. But I'm not worried about it. No, it's not keeping me awake at night.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, that's good. Need to get your sleep. That's right. Any prevent plant for your operation this spring?

Zach

Johnson: For our operation personally, we had a 45-acre piece that we did prevent plant. It was a new piece that we rented this year. It didn't get tilled back in the fall. It's got some drainage issues. There's actually a broken tile, I believe, kind of running through the middle of it. It just was a— it didn't work out. We went out there, we tried to till it, we looked at no-tilling it, and it was so wet underneath that it just— we haven't been able to do anything with it. We did, we did spray it the other day and left some ruts out there. I would love to just get a drill out there, a no-till drill, and throw some cover crop down. But I think I think we'd be lucky to get half those acres planted because it's just that wet yet.

Shay

Foulk: What's your alternative if you're not able to get the drill out? Are you concerned about that moving into next spring with it just staying wet all year?

Zach

Johnson: I am, yeah. But you know, it's the first time we've had the piece. We don't have a long-term contract on it. So we're, we'd be nervous about investing in drain tile into it. And I'm concerned about not having anything growing out there either. I'd love to have a cover crop on because I, you know, from what I hear, these— you leave a field stand fallow, and you can have issues with it next year. So I am, I'm definitely concerned about it. We're kind of talking to the landlord and talking to some other people about what we think might be the best decisions to make on that piece. So right now we, we're working on a plan. We don't have one.

Shay

Foulk: There's a lot of people that are in that same position across the Midwest of it was too wet to plant in the spring, you know, trying to just maintain management throughout the year. But even here, central Illinois and southeast Iowa, there's a lot of, a lot of fields that have gone unplanted that very few have even had any herbicide applications made to them.. And even less have cover crops. I think I've only seen 2 fields that went prevent plant that have cover crops, which is very surprising. But when your soils stay that wet, what do you do?

Zach

Johnson: Right? Yeah. You know, like I said, an hour west of me, there's a lot of fields out there that didn't get planted. And when I drove through there, I mean, about half of them had been sprayed. Most of them hadn't been tilled. They were just— there was water standing everywhere. So situation like that, you know, man, what do you, what do you do? I'm sure a lot of those guys would love to go out and get some cover crop in there. But it's just, it hasn't been an option yet. It just never quits raining.

Shay

Foulk: So was there anything outside that? Was it strictly a management decision for taking the prevent plan of, hey, we just physically cannot get into the field? Or did you look at the financial side of that as well?

Zach

Johnson: Well, you know, we looked at the financial side as well. But in the end, I mean, for us, it was 45 acres, it wasn't a make or break situation for our operation, it just, it just is what it is. I would rather have had a poor crop growing in there than, than take prevent plant, you know, we're farmers, that's what we want to do, we want to grow a crop. But when you looked at the finances of it and said, well, we can mud it in and wreck this soil and force a crop in there and maybe we'll get something or we can, we can take the prevent plant and get a cover crop in there in a couple of weeks. I mean, it, you know, at some point with that prevent plant, the way the insurance works, you have to make the decision. And we didn't feel like we could get a decent crop in there at all.

So we just decided, we're going to take the prevent plant, we'll throw a cover crop in there, we'll make the best of it. And and hopefully fix it up a little for next year. And like I said, that just— that still hasn't worked out. I mean, it just hasn't dried out enough to get that plan to go the way that we were hoping it would when we made that decision.

Shay

Foulk: Yep. And it works out that way sometimes.

Zach

Johnson: That's right. You can have a plan until Mother Nature kicks you in the face.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. And then you hope that you have a secondary plan and keep rolling with it until she punches you in the face again. But yeah, you mentioned fall tillage there. Can you talk a little bit about what the tillage program looks like on your operation?

Zach

Johnson: For us, we are all conventional till. I would say 99% of our county is conventional till. There's very, very little no-till in this area. I would love to start trying to experiment with some of it, maybe on that 40 acres if we get a long-term situation figured out there. But we are conventional tillage in the fall on the bean ground, we actually are on the soybean stubble, we'll run a, it's a John Deere chisel plow that we've rigged up to be a deep bander. So we apply our fertilizer through that variable rate. So we're banding it down below the soil. It's, it's not a spread over the top situation, it gets applied right behind the shanks. So we are deep banding fertilizer in the fall with that. And the rest of the, the rest of the corn stalks typically get a deep ripper run on them. So that's kind of been our plan. We like the way that deep rippers run.

We are talking about maybe trying a high-speed disc out this fall and seeing how that works on a few acres. But otherwise, pretty, pretty conventional as far as we go.

Shay

Foulk: Now you mentioned looking at some of the no-till systems. Have you looked into any strip-till at all?

Zach

Johnson: You know, yes, I think, I think strip-till would, would, would, would work well around here. We actually, we have one neighbor who does do strip-till, and it seems to work well for him. The issue is, I can't rent his strip-tiller because he's on 22-inch rows. So that doesn't work for us. And getting a strip-till machine out here is so, so dang expensive. And there's none in my area that are available to rent or to you know, to pay to have somebody test a few acres. The one idea that I had would be taking off some of the shanks on our, on our chisel plow and just running the, just running the deep bender shanks where they're actually applying, and that would essentially be a strip-till machine. The issue is that it wouldn't leave it level enough for a seedbed in the spring. It would be, you know, it's a chisel plow, so it would be pretty rough.

So I'm not sure what we'd run over it in the spring then, but But I think, I think, I think strip-till would be a good option. I just haven't figured out yet financially or logistically how to, how to test with that.

Shay

Foulk: Right. Well, you got plenty of time here. So maybe that'll work out here in the next 4 or 5 years. I think it's awesome that you're, you know, looking at different things for your farm operation and, and moving, moving ahead into the future. You know, what does the next step look like? And I know you've been doing some work as far as discussions on, on the podcast that you're a part of with conservation tillage and things like that. And I think that's very exciting. What do you think is the most, or the biggest change that you might see within your operation in the next 4 to 5 years?

Zach

Johnson: The biggest change, you know, Dad is building a house right now about 10 miles away from here. So he's going to be physically off the, off the property. My wife and I bought the farmhouse here over Thanksgiving just a few months ago. So there's definitely a big change there with me being the full-time guy on the farm. So that, you know, that kind of remains to be seen how that'll change everything. My role is always getting bigger in the farm. So I'm excited about that, you know, I'm ready to move in and, and do a lot more on the farm. I wouldn't be surprised if we moved into some strip-till stuff. But like I say, I have not figured out yet how to work that, you know, the strip-till machines are so dang expensive. I've got some ideas on how maybe to share some equipment, maybe, but I don't know.

I know we're going to add to our bin site, we're going to build some more grain storage, that's always been big for us. You know, we just kind of move along, I guess, and take it as it comes. Right now, we don't have any, any big plans to really change up what we're doing. Okay.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, no, that's, that's great to hear. And how old is your father? And what do you think that transition will look like in the next 10 to 15 years?

Zach

Johnson: Yeah, so Dad's not real old. He just turned 60 in December.. And he's always been pretty good about trying to do some transition planning. So we've kind of been picking away at that and working on that a little bit as we go here. So I think that, you know, a farm transition, especially when it comes to an operation that's any decent size, it can get complicated, especially when you, when you add into the mix other family members. And, you know, where, what do you do with what and how do you buy this and that without paying Uncle Sam half of what you make. And it's, uh, it, it can, it can be tough, but we've been working with, uh, a lawyer and a pretty good accountant to try and get some of that transition planning really moving along and trying to figure out how we should go about this.

Shay

Foulk: Good. And starting early and doing it right. I mean, that stuff takes time, but like you said, not having to pay it all back to Uncle Sam and making sure that everybody's happy with the process. I That's phenomenal to hear. Any last thoughts here kind of on the crop production side, how things are looking in your area? Any last comments that you want to make on that before we kind of shift gears here?

Zach

Johnson: You know, I think there's no doubt 2019 has been challenging. A lot of guys have had a lot of struggles and, and I feel for them. And I think as farmers, you know, it's, it's easy to get down sometimes when, when Mother Nature just keeps keeps hitting you in the face like that. And it's, it's easy to say you don't like what you do. But farmers are proud people. We work hard and generally love what we do. So I think we'll get through 2019 and 2020 will be better. And, and we have to be optimistic about that. So I thank you for having me on and I wish the best of luck to everybody for a good harvest here.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, and So, so one, one quick thing that, you know, that's great advice. One quick thing that I wanted to talk about here and maybe, maybe shift a little bit is some of what you do on the entrepreneur side. And I would, I would label you that. I would label you as an entrepreneur because you're involved in so many different things. And can you talk a little bit about how that started and what that looks like on that side?

Zach

Johnson: You're talking on the, um, the Millennial Farmer side of things?

Shay

Foulk: The Millennial Farmer, yes.

Zach

Johnson: Yeah, well, you know, it all— it was really when it started was just this idea I had to start a YouTube channel and, and be— and it didn't even have to be a YouTube channel when I started it. I just wanted a way to put myself out there and say, here's what I'm doing, here's who my family is, here's who I am, this is what we're doing today, and this is why we do it. This is why we use pesticides, and this is how we choose to do that and why we do it. And this is This is why we install drain tile, and hey, here's a video of my buddy putting some drain tile in for us. This is why we use genetically modified seed, and here's my beliefs on that. And, and just show people, you know, that, that if you have questions about GMOs, pesticides, and drain tile, and irrigation, and whatever it may be, here's why we choose to do those things. I have nothing to hide.

I don't think most farmers have anything to hide. We're, we're out here doing the best we can using modern technology You know, any other industry that, that, uh, is out there is going to keep moving forward using modern technology. And I think it's strange that we get ridiculed so badly when we try to implement some of that. And, uh, so I just decided I'm going to put myself out there and say, hey, here's who we are, here's what we do, and here's why we do it. And, and the thing just really, um, it was nothing more than a hobby for the first year and a half, and then all of a sudden it just blew up on me and We've been riding this train out and trying to steer it certain directions and figure out what exactly we're doing. And it's, it's kind of been a roller coaster.

Shay

Foulk: And I know you've been having outstanding feedback from it. Your, your audience is very large. You're closing in on 300,000 subscribers. And that's, that's on YouTube. That doesn't include any of the other platforms that you're on or involved with. Just the sheer impact that you're having within that community, I think, is incredible. You're doing a lot of, a lot of great work and sharing that message. And I think one of the initial concerns, or maybe one of the reasons I had heard in another podcast of why you had started doing that, is you're a little bit concerned with the negative things you're hearing about farming. How, how is that feedback right now? Do you get much negative feedback on the things that you post, or is it pretty much overwhelmingly positive.

Zach

Johnson: You know, it's, it's easy to pick out the negative comments that I do get and say, yeah, I get a lot of negative comments, but the, the fact is that it's 99% positive. Um, and, and I always tell people, this surprises me. Um, I guess it doesn't surprise me anymore, but it, it surprises me from what I would have thought when I started this whole deal. Of the negative comments that I do get, 9 out of 10 of those negative comments come from farmers. When I talk about GMOs and pesticides and drain tile, I don't get negative comments from the general public. And I, trust me, I have general public that watches me. I get comments in every video from people who have nothing to do with farming that absolutely love watching what actually goes on behind the scenes on a a larger-scale grain farm right now. And I don't get negative comments from those people.

I get them from other farmers within the ag industry who decide that they can do a better job of farming than me, and they want to make sure that they let everybody on the internet know that. And it doesn't surprise me anymore, but compared to what I thought when I started, it does surprise me. But it is what it is. I've never said that I'm trying to speak on behalf of the entire ag industry. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. And I would encourage others to do that. If you think I'm doing it wrong, you know, speak out about what you do on your farm and why you do it.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. Now you're, you're everywhere as far as social media goes. And correct me if I'm wrong, but YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and you personally are on LinkedIn. Is that accurate?

Zach

Johnson: That, that is accurate. There's a couple of those, um, Snapchat and LinkedIn, I don't think I've been into either one of those for about 6 months now. I just kind of, at some point it became where enough was enough. So it's really, it's YouTube and Instagram are the big ones. And a lot of that follows in on, onto Facebook. And about, oh, twice a week I will, I will log into Twitter and see what's going on there. But it's really, it's the YouTube and Instagram is, is where I've, I've kind of concentrated the majority of my energy over the last 6 months.

Shay

Foulk: And I was surprised when I saw that many platforms because that is a lot to go on. But one thing that I think is, is really unique— I know you have a lot of editing that goes into the YouTube stuff, but as far as posting pictures and things like that, it, it's pretty easy to put out a lot of content. And I mean, do you find, do you find that easy to do? Are you very particular about the things that you share, or is it more of a Hey, this is what's going on. Thought you might enjoy it.

Zach

Johnson: Yeah, it's— that's exactly what it is. Here's, here's where I'm at. This is a good, good opportunity to snap a cool photo and throw it up on Instagram. Or hey, you know, I thought of a question to ask one of my Instagram buddies that I've never met. So I'll throw up an Instagram story. That, that's all it is. You know, YouTube is, is where the work is. Instagram and Facebook are pretty easy to to throw some stories up or some posts up. So that's what it is. I mean, I don't, I don't concentrate on, you know, what the plan is to put out there on Instagram and Facebook. I don't, I don't ever do any of that. I know a lot of people will kind of schedule their posts. You know, they'll sit down on Sunday and schedule their posts for the rest of the week. And that's definitely not me. I mean, I just, I'm out here in this bean field and things look good.

I'm going to take a cool picture right now. I mean, that's, that's as simple as it is for me.

Shay

Foulk: Great. Now with the work that does go into the YouTube, if I understand it correctly, you have, you have a tribe kind of supporting that. Can you talk a little bit about who does a lot of the work with that and how that looks in the operation?

Zach

Johnson: Yeah. Well, my wife and I sold our house getting close to a year ago now and bought this place for my parents at Thanksgiving and moved in here. My wife did in-home daycare for close to 10 years. And when we moved, she decided to kind of hang up that part of her career. And we weren't exactly sure 100% where she was going to go with things. She's been huge with, with helping me get the videos edited. And, and, you know, somebody's got to maintain the house and watch the kids while I'm on the road kind of dealing with, with some of this stuff. And whether it be a public speaking deal or, or on the road to make a video or whatever it may be. We're fortunate enough to be in a position where she can help me out a lot with that. So that has been huge. You know, and, and dad's been supportive of it.

It was kind of, it was a bit strange at first to walk around the farm with a camera, as anybody out there can imagine. But, you know, now you can see the effect it's having and the people you're reaching. And he's always been, dad has always been supportive of, of agriculture in his own way. He was pretty active when it came to the Minnesota Corn Growers Association for a long time. And I think he realizes that this is my opportunity and my way of being an advocate for our industry. Great.

Shay

Foulk: What do your kids think about dad doing the farm videos?

Zach

Johnson: You know, they see, they see other YouTubers as being famous. But when it comes to my videos, I think they just— then I'm just dad, you know, you're just dad. Yeah, they've got friends who think it's kind of a cool deal. But no, my kids just see me as dad. There's nothing cool about what I do.

Shay

Foulk: And I think, as a lot of people say, you kind of have to be 100 miles or more away from home before you're an expert on anything.

Zach

Johnson: Yeah, yeah, that's probably true.

Shay

Foulk: So I know you're working on a few other things. I mentioned the podcast earlier. Tell me a little bit about the podcast that you're doing. I think that's, that's awesome. What, what does that look like? How long have you been doing that? And who, who all is involved with that?

Zach

Johnson: Well, yeah, so the, the podcast is called Fieldwork. It is through Minnesota Public Radio. They've got an initiative there where, where they concentrate a lot on, on water, water quality, and what's happening with water, and, and what are the decisions we need to make to make sure that we have sustainable water and that everybody has access to that. And they, they wanted to start this podcast that is As we say, it's by farmers and for farmers. And what we discuss on there really is, is ag sustainability and whatever that might mean to you, because, you know, that can mean different things to different farmers. But we do talk a lot about other tillage options, cover crops, drain tile, how to handle the water that's leaving your field.

And we talked about the issues and the the successes and the challenges and the difficulties that can come with trying to implement different practices. Myself and Mitchell Hora, we are the hosts of that. Mitchell is a farmer from Southeast Iowa. He's got a soil health consulting business called Continuum Ag. So he's got a ton of experience with, with, you know, different tillage options and cover crops where I come from the conventional tillage, my land is always too wet, I always have too much water. How do I work in less tillage and cover crops with a situation like that? And we talked about those challenges. And, and we've had a lot of really good guests on there, you know, being that we're, we're sitting at the MPR studios in St. Paul, Minnesota. Minnesota Public Radio's got some, some connections. So they're able to bring in some pretty high-level guests.

It's been a really great experience. And we're working on getting stuff together for season 2 right now.

Shay

Foulk: Great. Now, I think by looking at some of your content, are you also involved with FBN, Farmers Business Network, or where do you lie with that?

Zach

Johnson: I am not, not really involved in a business sense kind of way, but with, with just being involved in— I am a member. I believe in what they're doing. You know, then there's a lot of farmers who, who don't really necessarily believe in what they're doing. And so I like to let people know how I feel about that. I think that they're doing a lot of good things within the industry. There's a lot of stuff for a long time that we've kind of taken for granted as just being the way that it is. And I think FBN is kind of disrupting some of that. And, and I think it's in a, it's in a positive way. I think it is. It is a farmers first is their motto. And they really do live by that. So FBN is somebody I believe in. They, you know, full disclosure, yes, they are a sponsor of mine, but I was a member of them long before I ever talked to them about sponsoring any of the stuff that I do online.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm. And so what, what, for those listeners out there that aren't familiar with FBN, what is their, the mission purpose of the business, and what does that look like?

Zach

Johnson: You know, it started with transparency. It was a data analytics company online that would— you could submit your data into there. They would anonymize it all so that, you know, your neighbors can't log in and see that it's your data. But basically, I can log in and see the data in my region of every different variety that was submitted as far as the yield goes, how it yielded with different populations, how it yielded on different soil types in my area, and I can narrow that down to just my area. But it's, it's You know, I don't know whose data I'm looking at. But it's all, it's all aggregated and anonymized so that I can look at that and say, well, it looks like so-and-so has a variety that does better on this soil type in my area, or, you know, different things like that. Or maybe I'm planting too high or too low of a population.

I can also look and say, all right, I've got this variety, there's a good 94-day hybrid. And I've got a sales guy from another a company that's looking that also has a good 94-day hybrid. So I can go on, on FBN, on Farmers Business Network, and look those up. And actually, the data is there to show me that those same two hybrids, or those two hybrids might be the exact same seed. They just bag it differently, relabel it, call it something else, put it in a different company's bag and sell it to you as different seed, right? So they're putting that information out there. They're getting that transparency to us. They're also now into things like health insurance, financing. They are, they are kind of dipping their toes in the water and in all sorts of different things. They've got a lot of different stuff. They've actually got their own lines of seed right now.

So we did plant some, we did plant some of their corn and some of their soybeans this year. We're going to see how that does. They don't have zone pricing when it comes to their genetics. It's an overall flat pricing. So everybody everywhere is going to pay the same price for the same genetics. I just think with what they're doing with transparency and putting stuff out there and saying, hey, here's the, you know, here's the no BS of it all. I think that's great. I think it's, it's really kind of, it's kind of disrupting the industry. And the industry is going to have to look at it and say, is this the direction we have to go? And I think by being a member, I'm putting my voice out there and saying, yeah, this is, this is the direction that I as a farmer would, would like the, the, the big companies to go.

Shay

Foulk: And I think, you know, what I'm hearing there too is it's providing that perspective on the data and the information. This is how other people are doing it and kind of rethinking the industry and how it, how it's set up right now. That perspective is a huge advantage.

Zach

Johnson: Yeah, that's, that's exactly what it's doing.

Shay

Foulk: That's awesome. Well, I think we're kind of buttoning up on— this is one of the longer podcasts that we've done, but super interesting stuff, not only on the crops, but what you're doing within your operation. And then outside of that, with some of the other things. Any lasting thoughts that you want to leave the listeners with here, Zach?

Zach

Johnson: You know, I think we pretty well hit on a lot of it. I think there's a big opportunity, just kind of touching on some of the social media stuff and what I've done. I just want to let people know that there's a huge opportunity right now to be a positive voice for our industry because with the disconnection that we have from people, there's that big disconnection and at the same time, everybody wants to know where their food comes from, what's going on, who their farmer is, where all this stuff comes from and what are the practices we use. And so whatever way fits you, and I'm not saying start a YouTube channel or an Instagram account, but whatever way fits you as a producer, find a positive way to be a voice for our industry. And I think that's important right now. I think we need that more than ever. And I think we also have that opportunity more than ever.

Shay

Foulk: And to add on to that, people get a little bit intimidated when it comes to having some of those conversations. But what I found, and, you know, maybe you can add on to this, but it's really easy if all you're doing is sharing your story in sharing your truth. You don't have to change the world or know everything about everything. But what you do know is you know your story, and you know your truth and your beliefs that you have. And just to have those conversations, that's more impactful a lot of the times than knowing everything about the industry.

Zach

Johnson: That's right. You know, I, like I say, I don't, I don't claim to speak on behalf of the entire industry. I speak on behalf of what goes on in my farm. A lot of times I'll go to other farms and make some videos about what's going on. And, and I learn right along with the viewers. So I find it interesting to learn about other agriculture as well, because agriculture is what I love. And I would never pretend to know everything about it. So for me, it's all about learning along with a lot of my viewers about what's going on.

Shay

Foulk: Great. Well, Zach, you know, we'd love to have you down on our farm operation here in northeast Iowa sometime. If it works out for you on some of your travels, we do some of the strip-till stuff. And if it works, we'd love to have you stop by.

Zach

Johnson: Yeah, that would be interesting. I would, I would enjoy that.

Shay

Foulk: Great. So for all the listeners out there, again, you can follow Zach here, The Millennial Farmer. He's on YouTube, he's on Facebook, he's on Instagram, and dabbles in a few other areas. Also be sure to listen to the podcast. Fieldwork. Thanks, thanks for joining us today, Zach. I really appreciate it and look forward to seeing what you do in the future because what I'm excited about is you're in your mid-30s, you're just getting started.

Zach

Johnson: I appreciate it, Shay. Thank you very much.

Shay

Foulk: Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch. Thanks for listening, everyone. Be sure to follow Zach on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram @millennialfarmer and subscribe to his podcast Fieldwork on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Share this episode with family and friends, and we would love to hear your feedback. We'll catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.