Rachel
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
You might get a little bit of that, too.
Farm4Profit Podcast
F4F - Welker Farms & Special Guest Randy from Fieldrows
Who else are you working with?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Well, I know in the last episode you guys talked a little bit about expansion. So you guys have had a few different stores open up. What do you know about those?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Yeah, I feel like we've heard Rodeo's story before of how he came about TerraPlex and we've now heard yours, John. Sue, how did you get involved with the company?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
I'm Rachel Fischbach. I farm in Washington County, Iowa, with my brother Vince. We farm corn and soybeans. I also do a lot of social media with our farming operations. So Iowa Farm Mama, I am on social media for TikTok and Facebook. And then I also have a people of ag media marketing company doing marketing items for area businesses if they need help.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
Well, I think technology is growing with the times and keeping farming current with all of other industries that are out there, especially with social media and telling our stories via video.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
Yeah. So, I mean, traveling, especially with you guys, you know, seeing the different ag shows out there, there's so much technology in ag that we sitting here in Iowa do not even realize is happening in California or Texas.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
And until you see it firsthand, whether it's in person or video, you don't even know some of those crops have those capabilities or the equipment going with them to do that type of work. And I almost wonder, it's not necessarily that we're behind the eight ball as far as technology goes in agriculture.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
I almost feel sometimes the general public puts farmers in a category that we should be stuck in the 1950s in that farming world where, you know, I like to use the analogy of all the other industries, whether it's medical or the equipment or the different things in our homes, our vehicles, have all evolved throughout the decades, but everyone wants farming to stay in the 1950s era.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
And we have so many different people like yourselves, the professionals out there doing the technology behind all of our GPSing, our equipment that we have running. So, yeah, I think just telling our story that, hey, it's OK for ag to evolve with all the other technology in the world also goes with kind of telling your story and showcasing it to clients.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
Well, I would say on two levels. I've got my brother on camera. We talk about our farming on social media a lot. And then my brother and I have only been farming our family ground a couple of years, but it's with older equipment. So retrofitting older equipment with the GPS, the Delta Force, the seed farmers, the different things. So we're really trying to utilize technology.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
things that work for our operation that way.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
Well, I really like the spraying drones. I think that is a very interesting way of getting to our crops without damaging them. And then not just in row crop farming, but the different technology being used in livestock barns, the robots, the counting, the different things. for farmers to be able to check on their iPhones to make sure everything is okay for their livestock and barns.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
That has come a long way in the past five, six, 10 years, so.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
Yeah, just by utilizing some of the people on social media to talk about your product or showcase your product, they're going to show your product to a completely different audience in some situations. You know, we have people that follow us that have nothing to do with ag or some that watch you because of the similarities that you have in the ag business.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
I just want to ask you a question about the cover crop. So my brother and I have tried doing no-till, but our soils just work better because my brother is an engineer by trade and he loves doing some of these things. Have you noticed a success rate higher in certain soil types? Because we struggled in some of our things.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
Well, and can I just expand on that? So, you know, Corey, the Farm Talk friends, the people that are talking about different products on social media, like we feel that we all trust each other. We're friends on a personal level, but... they're not afraid to give their personal opinion or experience with a product.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
Yeah, so I definitely agree with the whole perception thing. You know, everyone wants their everyday life, whether it be medical, you know, the products that they use in their home to be advancing with technology, but they have that persona of an American farmer. You know, that
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
just explaining our processes and how we raise corn, soybeans, pigs, cattle, whatever our products are here in Iowa or across the United States to not, to showcase the A, B, and Cs of why we're doing it and the technology behind it is not scary. So yeah.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
I guess something that I would be concerned about or want to be on the forefront is touching on what Corey said, the technology that you're introducing making sure it works with multiple different brands of equipment. The one thing that is scary to me is I have children that want to farm and the price of equipment has gone up so drastically over the past five years.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
You know, people needing to go to used equipment, making sure that you can explain why your product works with used equipment if it's something that goes into tractors or combines. It doesn't have to be showcased with brand new items all the time because It's really hard for people to afford a lot of the brand new equipment out there today.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
This is my first time today I get to go first. Thanks, Tanner.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Tech-Driven Agriculture: Insights from a Panel of Farmers
I really think making a presence online, social media, is going to just become increasingly more because farmers are going to either continue to grow in size per acre or be smaller farmers. And telling your story just to help put a positive word out there about how farmers do things on their farm is going to be huge.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
42: Earlswood’s mass cycle ride and Reigate’s Pub In the Park plans… and more
Kidical Mass is a global movement. It was set up to campaign for safer cycling infrastructure for families and kids and to promote cycling as a healthy hobby to have. When I decided to set up Kidical Mass Ellsworth and Redhill, there wasn't a Kidical Mass in Surrey. Earlswood as a space is very green and there's lots of cycling, but the cycling to school is a bit hit and miss.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
42: Earlswood’s mass cycle ride and Reigate’s Pub In the Park plans… and more
It's very difficult, yeah. It's no fault of anybody really, but it's about educating people that perhaps they could cycle if they wanted to. This is a safe space that they could have a go at cycling on the road with their kids. There's some key points in Earlswood specifically that could be...
The Planet Reigate Podcast
42: Earlswood’s mass cycle ride and Reigate’s Pub In the Park plans… and more
really do with looking at there's a cycle path that sort of ends and then the cycle route national route 21 goes through Ellsworth down a residential road with no designated path historically and back in the day in the Victorian times there was actually a cycle path that went all the way across the ring that we call on Ellsworth Common. What are the numbers today?
The Planet Reigate Podcast
42: Earlswood’s mass cycle ride and Reigate’s Pub In the Park plans… and more
The official count this morning was 282, but quite a few cyclists joined on the ride. So we're calling it 300.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
42: Earlswood’s mass cycle ride and Reigate’s Pub In the Park plans… and more
Absolutely. I think every time we do it, it just grows and grows. And the more visible we are, the more people talk about it.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
42: Earlswood’s mass cycle ride and Reigate’s Pub In the Park plans… and more
Absolutely. It can be a daunting prospect to try and cycle sometimes with your children on the road. So this is a safe space for them to be able to practice that. And the more people on the bikes, the better. We try to do two every year. So this is our first one of 2024. We will probably do one in sort of September, October. And we try to centre each ride around a local primary school.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
42: Earlswood’s mass cycle ride and Reigate’s Pub In the Park plans… and more
So then it encourages different people to attend. It also helps promote the idea of cycling to school.