We sit down with Zach Hefty, a fifth-generation farmer from Baltic, South Dakota. Zach works in communication and sales at Hefty Seed Company, where he also uses his skills as a certified drone pilot to support sustainable farming practices. As the son and nephew of Brian and Darren Hefty—hosts of the AgPhD TV and Radio Show—Zach has deep roots in agriculture. Though he doesn’t technically farm, he contributes by helping with soil sampling, running the grain cart, and offering agronomy tips on social media platforms like TikTok.We learn about Zach’s passion for crop management, soil conservation, and his recent experience speaking at the AgPhD Field Day, where he moderated discussions with influencers Tony Reed and Michelle Martin. We'll also explore how social media has impacted his life and as always, we’ll wrap up with some fun.Don’t forget to like the podcast on all platforms and leave a review where ever you listen!Websitewww.Farm4Profit.comShareable episode linkhttps://intro-to-farm4profit.simplecast.comEmail [email protected] to YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSR8c1BrCjNDDI_Acku5XqwFollow us on TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@farm4profitConnect with us on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/Farm4ProfitLLC/
Social media takes a long time to edit and to post stuff all the time.
That's been a real learning process.
People don't realize how much that takes.
Yeah, it's a lot. And I feel terrible like when I'm sitting staring at my phone and my dad and my brother are looking at me like, let's go, let's get this truck loaded, let you know. It's like, okay.
I compare it to auctioneering. Everybody thinks it's all about talking fast for five seconds. That might be 3% of the job. The other 97% is the marketing, the brochures, the talking with the customers, the lining up the job, cleaning the equipment, et cetera, et cetera. There's like this much, but every new person that wants to get into it says, oh, I just want to talk fast.
I would relate the social media and the podcast side to that. And farming, really.
Everyone wants to go farm. They want to run the tractors.
For five seconds.
Really, it's three months out of the year that we're really in the tractors a lot.
and like not usually every day, depending on how much acres you have, but you're not in it every single day. There's a lot to it. I mean, there's a lot to everything you do.
Join Corey. You boys want some popsicles? David. So Tanner, what I really got to know is the juice worth the squeeze. And Tanner. All right, it's about time to wrap this baby up. They're my favorite, like Farm for Fun. It's time to put aside the stress of the work boots, sit down, grab your favorite adult beverage, and listen to the boys from Farm for Profit. Yay, it says applause.
Well, listeners, thanks for tuning in. We appreciate you. We really appreciate all that you do. Don't be afraid to send us a review. That actually kind of drives the way podcasting world and YouTube works. Make sure you hit five stars. Leave us a comment. We appreciate that. If you've got somebody we should talk to, let us know. This is going to be a farm for fun show.
And we're excited because I didn't think this guest would say yes. You didn't?
Why not?
No, I didn't. It's intimidating. One of the biggest names we've ever interviewed. It's a big name. It is. But listeners, we do, if you are new to the podcast, put out two shows a week, so there's no shortage of content. You can also follow us on all of our social media channels. But it's bright, early, second day of the Farm Progress Show, and the energy is second to none.
Weather's a little better, though.
I think it's the best I've ever felt on the morning of a Farm Progress Show.
Being in bed by 10 last night was kind of nice. We're getting old, aren't we? I didn't fall asleep right away, but I was in my own bed at 10 o'clock.
Hydrating for today because it's the big one today.
Tonight will be a completely different story. But he sat there in silence for long enough. Corey, why don't you bring him into the podcast?
All right. No music? No music. All right. Here we go. Today on the Farm for Fun show from the 2024 Farm Progress show here at the John Deere booth, we meet up with a first-time guest of the podcast. You may have heard his last name before. but he's looking to blaze his own trail in agriculture. He's a fifth-generation farmer from South Dakota.
You may have recently seen his content all over the socials. Please welcome Mr. Zach Hefty. Woo! Welcome to the show, buddy.
I love it. This is awesome. We didn't know if Corey was going to make it through traffic, so I had written an intro. It wasn't nearly as good, I'm guessing.
You should have seen what I had to do to get parked. I had to go through the ditch off of Highway 30 and run in here because Tanner does not do intros.
I was going to, and right before I was going to say, and fellow ginger. Welcome, Zach Hefty.
Anyway, welcome. Let's get a background about yourself. I think everyone knows the last name. If you're an agricultor, everyone knows the last name, but they might not have heard your first name. Yeah. So I'm Zach Hefty.
I work at Hefty Seed Company as an agronomist, and I work with Ag PhD with my dad and uncle. We farm as well. We farm about 3,500 acres in Baltic, South Dakota, a small town by Sioux Falls. And we host a field day there right at our farm each year. And it's super fun getting to talk to people about agriculture and learning more about agronomy.
So I only started agronomy just a few years ago in college. That's really taken off since. I mean, I grew up around it, but I never really got into it as much as I did when I went to college. And then when I came back to the farm and to the business, there's just a lot to learn. And just getting to know more about it every single day is really awesome. So go ahead.
Is that what you went to college for or did you switch it when you got there?
No, which is crazy. I didn't have much background in agronomy. Went straight into agronomy and agribusiness in college and just loved it since then.
So it's your dad and your uncle that run the Hefty Brothers that everyone knows. And so you grew up with that. Did you grow up helping on the farm?
Not that much, really. They... They took a different approach from their dad. And so their dad always wanted them to be safe and to not be in equipment or around equipment when they were young just so that there was no issue or no problems there. And so that's what they did with me too.
So I'd be mowing the lawns and stuff like that typically or keeping the grounds nice because mowing is not too difficult and it's not too dangerous too. So that's what I would do growing up. And then once I... Got old enough, then I started working, doing more things around the farm and stuff.
I was genuinely interested in that because his dad and uncle are probably some of the first, I would call, in social media. Even though social media wasn't, I mean, they've been on TV.
The first influencers.
Right? For a long time. And I just wondered what a kid coming up, because it feels like everything now, influencers are kind of a first gen thing. And we've never been through it. We found it mid-life. So I just wanted to hear how that life was coming up.
Yeah, whenever we would go to airports or stuff like that, there'd always be farmers stopping them and talking to them. And when I was younger, I didn't really get why they were doing that because he's just my dad or uncle around me and not someone that teaches agriculture. So it was fun to do that or to see that.
Zach, he said in the opening that you want to blaze your own trails. So you went agronomy. We know about your parents and uncle. What are you going to do?
Well, I'm starting into that journey, starting here on the podcast, doing other things. I really like to learn about agriculture, teach agriculture and show farmers and show people around the world what farming is like and showing the good story and sharing the good story of ag, which maybe gets missed sometimes.
So people don't always know what's happening in agriculture or they're curious about it. And I just like to show what We do an egg and teach people about it.
So if we put a bow on it or parentheses around it, influencer.
Content creator.
Educator.
Educator, yes.
How many words could we just say here? I don't know. It's like synonyms for all of the things that he wants to do.
There you go. So what do you all do now? I mean, there's a lot of things under the hefty umbrella, right? What is it you do under there?
So if you see Ag PhD on social media, that's me, basically, running that. So started that not that long ago, really, and... just repurposing some content because they post Egg PhD every single week, brand new show, and then radio show every single weekday, there's a new show. And so I do Egg PhD social media. And then obviously, both my dad and uncle are agronomists. So they teach me a lot of
agronomy and so I'm out in the field in our fields a lot scouting and trying to figure out what we have going on in our field to figure out how to stop it or control weeds or insects or whatever so we're doing a lot of that and then also working with some farmers too
So we're here at the 2024 Farm Progress Show, one of the biggest shows in the land at the John Deere booth. You are surrounded by agronomy. Like, I don't care where we go. You've got to be a kid in a candy store right now.
Yeah, it's awesome. And I haven't even seen the whole show yet. Okay. But just walking around, seeing a bunch of people, a bunch of farmers being here, I mean, it's awesome.
Hopefully you brought your camera. It makes it educate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So have you done anything with the Hefty Seed brand or in their Hefty Seeds and all that kind of – what else is there under? Acres TV kind of stuff? Yeah.
Yeah, mainly with Hefty, just working with our agronomists and learning agronomy basically is what I do and help out any way that I can. But mainly just learning agronomy is my main thing that I do. How big is the Hefty team? You said helping your agronomist.
Yeah.
Well, there's multiple different stores, obviously, with Hefty Seeds. So there's a couple hundred agronomists probably, but just talking with them. And they're in different areas, too. And that's what I find really interesting about agriculture is agriculture right here has nothing to do with agriculture far away.
So when you talk to those other agronomists or other farmers in other places, it's completely different than what it was.
Why am I looking at a picture of Prince Harry, David?
Because that's all I can think about when I'm looking at Zach. I'm like, it's Prince Harry. It's Prince Harry and Meghan. Where's Meghan? Prince Hefty.
Prince Hefty. That's the title of the episode. Prince Hefty right here. I'm sorry, but that might catch on if it hasn't already. Yes. So, Prince Hefty, is there a princess?
I have a girlfriend. We're getting close. Awesome. That's really cool. It's cool. We've been dating for a while, though. Is she into agriculture also? No. She has no idea about agriculture.
So what's a while to you? Because I dated six months and I was married. Corey dated for like nine years and then he was married.
So it's in between that. About two and a half years.
He's like me. It was three. Ginger looks like a prince. Two years.
Two years, Dave. Or one and a half. Okay. I got it.
So I have a question for you guys.
Sure.
What's the story on the cool shirts?
Yes. I love that question. Take it. So it originally started with one of our partners, Steinbauer. And Sherry is one of the most beautiful people that we know. Inside and out. She has such a caring soul and saw that through her client base, she was seeing way too many clients commit suicide.
So she partnered up because Steinbauer's originally from Australia, New Zealand area, and partnered up with a team called Trade Mudge. And Trademutt is a mental health awareness organization that does that through wild print shirts. So your company can put a logo on it. Your company can have a way to represent and remind them that everybody is worth something.
But the cool part is she was wearing one of those shirts during an interview with us. It went viral. People are like, where do you get that shirt? I want a shirt just like she's got on. So Trademount sent us some clothes and we started wearing them in our podcast and we had more clips get really good views. So then they embroidered our logo on a couple of them.
But the point is to get the question that you're asking, to be able to tell people that, hey, if you need something, we might not be the best person to have the conversation with, but we're still going to tell you you're valuable. The back of the shirt says it's a conversation starter, and then the flap has a QR code.
To send people to where they need to be.
Yeah. So Australian company.
right we thought that there was something that we could start doing as farm for profit and these are our first two attempts at designs that these guys are wearing to go down our own line of hey let's put on a shirt let's be funky and then make sure that that message gets out there if you're wearing one of our shirts and somebody asks you say hey got it from the farm for profit podcast their story is trying to help bring more awareness to mental health issues yeah
And Dave's gets a lot more comments than this one. Yesterday, walking around, Tanner and I had those shirts on. Love your shirt, love your shirt. So just start that conversation.
Yeah, that's awesome.
I didn't know that was the story behind it.
That's really cool.
We probably need to tell it more often. You know, that's one of the things that we have the privilege to do. And the same thing with you guys. You know, on your platform with your dad and your uncle, we know margins are getting tighter.
And one of the two things that we're doing on this podcast this fall is we're making sure our content is extremely valuable right now to help farmers with tight margins. But we're also going to make sure it's extremely fun because we know that they're going to need a mental break, something like this conversation, just to kick back and not have to worry about life for an hour.
And we can tell you that Dave had probably the personality that would wear something like that. Tanner and I, we were like, what are we going to do with this? What do we call those, paisleys? This is called Austin Flowers. Austin Flowers, yeah. We would not normally wear that out in public, but it was a little nerve-wracking the first couple times.
But I'll tell you what, I think it's pretty cool now.
Yeah, it is. That's a great question. Once you start wearing it, though, then it's for another reason. It's not just, oh, it's a fashion. I just like to wear that. It's because of another reason.
People in the comment section will say it looks dumb, and other people will be cool. You just shut it all out because you've got a purpose.
I will say what we did change was these are... thick australian cotton these are like uh sunday swagger actually sunday crew uh makes them it's a golf shirt you know it's very nice if you wanted to double up the mission statement sunday swagger sunday crew is all about uh melanoma awareness yes 50 spf yeah yeah let's do our good things
except we didn't get the sleeves we need the full sleeves that's right you know so yeah we should my ear was peeling from we've started making uh conversations with people that we work with and companies that are out there and we we should start making designs as partnerships we should get a hefty we have our own like mass car shirts with all the right yeah we need the the spf especially for me and tanner because i don't want to apply sunscreen all the time yep
and it needs to be long-sleeve sometimes. We could do that.
So, Prince Hefty, you have an Ag PhD shirt on.
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It was pretty insane because I grew up around going to this event my whole life. Okay. And it always just seemed like if you were a speaker there, you just were like the coolest person. Because when you're growing up, you always see all these speakers and you're like, oh, they get to go speak in front of people. And so it was cool. It's not like I was the only speaker. I was moderating.
I was talking to Michelle Martin and Tony Reed, which are really cool guests to have. It was fun. But no, I was... kind of blown away that I even got asked to do it.
Do you really moderate Tony Reed? How does that work? You try to contain. Just contain air quotes on the outside?
Yeah.
You get him in the general bar. All right.
Fair enough.
He was sitting in that chair yesterday with just a Jackson thing. But he's always professional when he gets on the mic.
Always, yeah.
Not like it's TikTok. Everyone wants to know, is he really like he is on TikTok? If you get a few keystones in him.
He's still got a really good perspective.
Always.
Everything comes from a base. That's for sure.
And it was funny to see John Deere come around to that, because at first they were like, nope, don't want anything to do with that. And then they met him, and it's like, oh, yeah, he can come up here.
Yeah, he's a really nice guy to meet. He's not, I mean...
he will talk and say whatever he wants like on tiktok but he's he's a super nice guy yeah well that's good did you do a whole lot of so coming up did you follow like your ancestors i'll say or your family or did you learn to like that in college like where you went to college did you take speech classes and or do you just like talking to people
Um, I just like talking to people and they were always doing that and talking in front of people and just, they just said, you just got to practice and do it. And I was like, okay, well I'll start doing that. But I like social media. And so that was kind of my way.
to talk to people more and then I started doing that more and more and obviously when you first start out which you guys probably went through too it sucks right away and you're like super nervous and you are like oh this is so bad and I don't know what I'm doing but as you do it just a few times you start getting really good at it and then it starts being fun no we started off being great
Oh, yeah. Right? I mean, instant success. Kind of like riding a bike. You just know how to do it.
Swing a baseball bat. It takes a lot, and there's even times to where I watch us back or listen to it back, and I'm like, God, you suck at this, and still want to improve or do something different. Actually, what's probably more common is Corey sends me a text and says, God, you suck at this. Yeah, I can only be critical of you, not myself. Nice to have people to keep you humble.
I don't want to turn this into an episode about your dad and uncle, but I am genuinely curious. They farmed. How did they get into doing what they're doing? Because everyone knows that. Yeah.
So like with Egg PhD, they've been telling me the story a little bit, but there's some other either company or people that were doing like a farm show or something, and they're like,
we can do that or their dad's like we you can do that and so then they just started making episodes and it was scripted right away which the cool thing about it now is they are not scripted they just they just talk and it's just got to be right on the money because it's on national tv and stuff so they time that and they just can talk and they don't have to have a script or anything but it just started 25 or 20 something years ago
and they just did it every single week, and then it just started to grow, I guess, after they did it. So that's kind of how they started. They just got told they were going to do it, basically, by their dad, and then it's turned into what it is now.
So can I play your game? What game? So normally Tanner plays a Would You Rather game or something like that. I'm just thinking agronomy. So, like, would you rather be a soil scientist, like, I don't know, let's say normal agronomist and give me a recommendation of what I should do, or would you do microbiologics?
I like being out with the farmer, trying to educate him on what practices have been working and what don't, and try to make them the most money as possible.
All right, Corey, I need another one. What's another would-you-rather agronomy question?
Oh, boy, you really should have thought this out a lot sooner before.
He's an agronomist major.
Would you rather plant corn or plant soybeans? Oh, yeah.
uh probably corn but i mean it yeah because corn's fun corn right everyone wants to buy corn even when they can't make money with it would you rather you already said probably be in the field versus in a lab yeah in the field and the field's fun because yeah because then you get to see thing i mean you have no idea what you're going to see out in the field and that's what makes it really cool would you rather be in the studio or in the cab
Ooh. That's a great question, actually. It's fun to do both. It's fun to do both. I'd probably say I don't get to do it as much, but probably be in the cab. It depends on what I'm running, I guess. Okay, then combine or grain cart?
combine is fun and is it a grain cart or an auger wagon or a catch car or a chaser bin uh grain we we run i used to always run the grain cart there we go and uh that's right i don't get to run the combine but if i got to it'd be really fun so would you rather hold on i want to hold your question because now i'm curious about you guys would you rather sit in a cab or sit in the studio
Can I do both? I can run the cab from the studio?
We kind of make, we can, whoa. Right? What about you?
I would be in the cab. Every time we go on site, like today at the John Deere booth, it's much more fun. Yeah.
I would say Cab is probably the best place.
I agree.
I think it's the best balance.
It's the best job if you can do both.
Yep. So would you rather harvest Nebraska corn or Iowa corn?
Well, since we're in Iowa, probably Iowa. All right. Just a second. How do things look in South Dakota? Pretty good. So we got a flood at the beginning of the year. I don't know if you saw any of those videos. It was pretty bad. But so all the bottom ground kind of like got flooded out or got severely damaged. But all the stuff that didn't get flooded out actually looks pretty good. So we'll see.
I mean, it'll be probably average because some was really good and some was really bad. But it all in all looks pretty good, I'd say.
So we do a lot of succession planning episodes and things like that. Obviously, you guys are a farm, but then you also have a media business as well. Have you guys started that? Are you going to take over the reins someday? No, we have not talked about that at all.
Maybe you should listen to one of our shows. He is. He's going to go back to Elaine's show and Junkin's show, and he's going to send all these to his dad and say, hey, I met these guys. They're legit. You need to listen to this. What?
No, if you've met him before, he will probably not be done doing what he's doing for a long time. He's one of those farmers. He's going to do it until he dies. Yeah, he loves doing what he does. So I don't know when he's going to do anything different, but he loves it.
That's the crazy thing about media is, you know, if you're farming – You either got to take over that farm or go find a bunch more acres to start your own. Media, there's a bunch of room. You can just carve out your own little space on the side and run in parallel.
Or you can go farm yourself. That's right. You could. I mean, it's kind of interesting when you think about the perspective of media is even less labor-intensive than farming is to where we've got some ag broadcasters that I thought should have been done a long time ago, and they still are. Ag broadcasting and loving it because they love the social aspect of it.
I'm looking forward to an episode I think we're going to record in December. And it's a father that turned over the farm to his son at age 62 or 63. And we want to share that perspective that he thinks it's the best thing he's ever done. Still gets to be involved, but turned over the decision-making. Yeah. And it just makes him so proud and all.
I mean, I don't want to take the thunder away from that episode. But it is kind of neat when you think about the longevity of farmers and media folks these days being able to say – My kid's doing a good job.
So you guys asked me how Ag PhD started, which wasn't really me, but how did you guys get started with this?
Yeah, so it started initially for Dave and I to differentiate ourselves in our professional careers. Auctioneer, realtor, getting his start. Ag lender, getting his start. It's hard to pick a client. Both not from the area. Yeah, both not from the area. Moved into the Ames area and kind of wanted to make a name for ourselves.
We knew we weren't going to be able to learn everything and be the expert. So it was our goal to meet all the experts. So if you needed something, we had somebody that we could introduce you to and put that together. So it started as a conference. Did that for four or five years. It kept getting bigger and bigger and more popular.
And then all of a sudden we went, let's take the speakers off the stage and put them on a podcast. I'd been trying to get Corey's business for years, and he'd been attending those conferences because the information was extremely valuable. And just as COVID kicked off, he goes, you guys are boring. Yep. Love your mission, but you suck at entertainment.
He said, let me come in and show you how to do it. And that's when we started Farm for Fun.
We tell that story so different. Do you? How do you tell it? What would you change about it? We don't have time for the whole thing. It's just shorter and faster.
I don't do anything short and fast.
Tanner came to me one day and says, hey, let's start a podcast. I'm like, what's a podcast? He's like, whatever, you're too old. And so we started a podcast. He's like, you got the equipment. I'll do the rest. Goes in my basement. We start a podcast. We did it for, I don't know, 10 episodes or so.
then tanner says hey let's bring cory in and he's going to be a guest on it so he does well cory has a big following cory had the bush light combine cory also says you guys are boring you need to be more relatable like let's just drink beer and talk about farming so then that is when we incrementally started farm for fun so we have two two sides to this farm for profit farm for fun so one is hey we're still going to be serious get a message but the other is how about be relatable farmer drink beer sure let's drink beer talk about farming and the rest is history yeah i
don't know if that was any shorter it was exactly the same it was more entertaining and i would just just say that i just wanted i listened to podcasts outside of ag and i think ag is no different than everybody else we're all humans right i want to be entertaining and be barstool-esque and espn you know like that to to ag and so i'm a very social person
And I had a bunch of friends and then COVID just kind of grounded. It grounded a lot of people. And that was my social hour was with that. And then it just stuck, you know, and I still look forward to it. It's kind of my mental health away.
And if we fast forward to today, it's no longer farm for profit podcast. It's farm for profit media. So we've now got our hands in all kinds of stuff. Just like hefty. Yeah. Yeah.
It's wild. We found a hole and we filled it, and it feels like the hole keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So we keep stretching our stuff.
July, five years? Yeah. What is that in dog years, or what is that in podcast years?
That's very old for podcasts. Most podcasts last three months or nine episodes, and then people are done. How many episodes are you guys up to now? 300 or 400. Yeah, 400.
I mean, we do 104 interviews a year.
It was once a week, started out. Actually, they were going every other week. Then they went to once a week, and then we just could not get content out fast enough. Our list of guests and everything kept growing, so we had to go to twice a week. We could go every day, probably.
The reason we do these interviews at a farm show like this, whether it's Farm Progress or Commodity or wherever we are at... is the people we want to talk to are physically here. And it is so much better to do it in person.
Studio versus cab. Yeah, way better.
So, yeah, we may have shows that string out, but the conversation was going to happen whether or not we did it here or virtually. And this, I can already tell, is way more fun than any Zoom call would have been.
Yeah. It's really cool to be, like, in person and do it and not having to, like, just fly out or like drive out just for like a couple hours and drive back and stuff. It's awesome.
So are you, as I think of media, so I'm a drone pilot. Are you doing anything with drones and your stuff?
Yeah, I got my drone license, which I needed to have it apparently when I found out because I was going to do drone stuff. I needed to get the license because then at least you're a little bit more –
regulatory with the faa so that was good but no i do some drone stuff i don't like if you see on egg phd we have a couple drone pilots so it's usually the other guy doing it for egg phd but i'll do some of my own stuff just when we're out farming
All right, so now we've got him warmed up and buttered up. Corey, you missed a really good opportunity to ask the question you've been dying to ask. When he said he was here moderating a panel and he had two guests on stage. It was too early. That's right. We're warmed up. You want to ask it or are you scared? The top five?
How come we didn't make the top five things to do at Farm Progress Show, your interview?
Honestly, it was actually about yesterday's stuff, to be honest. When I wasn't even thinking about, like, yesterday we had so much stuff going on, I was like, oh, we just got to do this and this. And then I also thought, you guys were posting a lot, and I'm like, this is great. I love this. Just let them do their thing. I'll be fine. No, that's actually on me. to be honest.
I was just thinking about yesterday's stuff because I was like, we got so much stuff going on.
We get it. We were just looking for the clip on Insta that just says, uh... That's all we really want.
We get it. You can't please everyone. And when you're in this position, I mean, Tanner's brain gets so scrambled at these things because he's a scheduler by heart. And, like, yeah, it's about fried by the end of the week trying to think of all the – you should see the schedule we have. Every conversation, every bathroom break, every food intake is scheduled.
I don't care about if you go to the bathroom, but if I miss lunch, we got problems. It is. You got to feed the Tanner.
He was hangry yesterday.
Oh, yeah. I went and got lunch for everybody yesterday.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I like that, though. I schedule a lot of stuff, too, though. I mean, if I didn't hear, it would be like a nightmare. I feel like he's my guy.
And if we didn't have Tanner doing that, we would be screwed. Actually, this would have been dead at the start. Dave and I aren't that organized.
Yesterday was fun. They're helping me come out of my rigidness. I did. I stood here, and we had some really great conversations. But I'm looking at my watch going, it's 15 minutes until we're supposed to be someplace else. And we're still standing here, and I'm kind of like, hey, we got to move. And then it's four minutes until we got to be to where we're supposed to be.
That's a pretty fancy purple shirt he's got right there. I like that.
And sometimes a golf cart really doesn't make you any faster in the crowds that are here. No, it's bad. You go like one mile an hour probably.
They need like a sky lift from one side to the other. You need to do an interview today. So my local, my son, the Ballard FFA gets to come up here. I heard they're coming today. So they're all coming today. So he is like all pumped. And he asked me last night, he's like, can I get one of those shirts to wear tomorrow forever? Oh. And I was like, I don't have any that will work for you, buddy.
And he's like, well, all the kids want to come and they want to know what they're supposed to do at the progress show. So I wonder if there's somebody that has a deal that says here's what all the kids should do. Did you give them our schedule? They could follow us around like groupies. That could be good.
I was thinking they're all going to go get a bucket because everybody gets a bucket to haul stuff around, and every kid's going to grab.
Oh, we struck Farm Show Gold last night. We tried to get to the exit, and then it rained, and we got stuck at Maya. Oh, that's a terrible place to get stuck, right? And every time it kind of stopped raining, it rained again, and so we were late out of the show. And Corey walks past the truck and goes, do you want one of those – Jesus walking sticks. He's laying right there on the ground.
Throw it in. You were blessed. I was. I was. Did you use it today to walk in here? I didn't because I was carrying a speaker. I had the speaker and the tripod. That was my walking in.
So this won't get out in time, but I want to tell you guys what Gavin told me yesterday on stage at Fent or at Agco. He said the best thing about Farm Progress is the after party. Oh, yeah.
Yes.
So are you coming? Yep.
I'll be there. He's going to have to now. He's FOMO. Yeah. I was telling you about it.
It is the best thing. It is one of the most premier networking events, I mean, ever. Gosh, I can't tell you the amount of friends that we've made there. And then we got a lot. It's weird. Social media is weird, right? Like, you're my friend, but this is the first time we've ever met, right? Like, this is kind of weird. And it's just a cool place to sit down and chat in person.
The number of virtual interviews that we do, and we finally get to see them in person. And everybody is busy at this show, whether you're an attendee or you are here under a contract or an agreement. Everybody has an agenda and a place to go. This is hours. We don't even put it end time. It's a question mark. I think this is hours of time to where you don't have to do anything.
And if all farmers are introverts, not all of them are because there's some that want to be social, then they're out on social media. But when we get to meet them, I just never know their names. I need a name tag that says, here's your user handle. And then, oh, that's who you are. That's your real name because I just know you as. We didn't buy any name tags.
We could get some stickers and a Sharpie pretty quick. That's what we need. Because if you know Iowa Land Guy, you might not know it's David Whitaker. Yeah. Right? I'm sure everyone knows who you are, Dave. That's the first year. When we were there, I just recognized people from TikTok or recognized people from X or, well, Twitter.
You'll really appreciate the shop, too, because I'm pretty sure it's air-conditioned. It can hold, like, 500 people. And then he's got, like, a secret, like, hangout room with a golf simulator, a bunch of cool bourbon and all this stuff. So he's a pretty cool dude.
yeah that's sweet so since we're in the John Deere booth I have a couple questions for you guys about so you guys went to like the innovation John Deere or John Deere Center what was that place about and what were is there like cool things that are coming or what
So Dave and I got to go. Correct? You didn't make it. I was sick.
Yep.
Dave and I got to go, and we missed the ride and drive day, which I think would have been even cooler. But it is fascinating to see the technology that they are continuing to build in and the number of passes that they do to test this technology. And 8RX on a field cultivator, and it's part of their pathway to autonomy, and it runs all day long.
And everybody says, you know, they have a proving ground, right? Well, there's one just south of town here that literally that's what they're doing the entire time. Like he said, we missed the opportunity to actually do some of the cool stuff. But we even got in on some of the construction equipment that they have because John Deere is not just agriculture. It's also construction equipment.
And we got to see some of those construction guys. Man, when you talk about, like, smoothness in running an excavator or running something –
you know we're a little jumpy and they're just they're just so smooth and that's because we farmer it finesse we don't run this all day and we go get in one and we think we know what we're doing and they have those sites all across america and probably the world and it's just like 160 acres out there of bare dirt and they're just spraying water all day with sprayers just putting hours on stuff yeah you know testing and they planted you know they're planting all day and
There's a lot of time and money invested into what goes into these products.
They weren't there the day that we were there, but they have people in all the time that basically is farmer input. So any good company has input, and they're like, well, what should we change? How can we make it better? You know, innovation.
It started, actually, that relationship for the site that's right here started with a custom harvesting crew that they wanted to put acres on combines. And they wanted an operator that is a professional combine driver. It's a custom harvester. To be able to tell them this is working, this isn't working, this is I'm picking up productivity, I'm not. So that's really kind of a neat exposure.
Yeah, and this right here is exactly why I like talking to other people in the ag industry or farmers because you learn all this stuff that you got to experience, which it would be awesome if I could experience that, but just then you get that secondhand experience and you know what's happening or what's coming next, and it's really cool to listen to that.
Don't be afraid to jump in because... I was the guy that had been in it. So we're all sure everybody here is shirttailed to agriculture somewhere, right? One in five jobs in Iowa is agriculture. With that being said, just because you're in agriculture doesn't mean you know how to do it. And so I've learned some hard lessons this year of like, why do they do that that way? So totally ask questions.
But then when you get the chance to do it and somebody's like, hey, you want to hop in and try? Every time. Hop in and try. Because that's different than just hearing about it. Like I hear about all the ag tech and I geek out on tech. Hey, that's great. But now I get to play with it and press the button and do it. Different world. Yes, sir.
And we got to run, not the Innovation Center, but we got to go out to the John Deere Classic and run the little excavator with the world's largest putter. Yeah. And how is that? I made it my first time.
Dave did not make it.
Dave did not make it. It was good because these guys talked to the staff to move the ball. You've got to slide a couple dollar bills to make sure Dave doesn't succeed.
Actually, it only took a far-for-profit koozie.
Yeah, you've got to knock them back a peg or two. The problem was everybody just sits in it, and they have, like, one lever, right? Like, you can go left or right. Well, I run an excavator, so I turn up the volume on it.
Oh, you should have seen the volunteer's eyeballs. Oh, yeah, he just revved it up.
I throw all this thing up, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And I'm like, let's go.
Does a full 360 like a driver. Actually gets air underneath the golf ball.
Yeah.
That's good. Anything else on John Deere?
Well, I was curious about the Classic because I'd never been, but I've seen about it before.
So we didn't know what to expect. Tanner's a golfer. I whack the ball around a few times a summer in just like four-person bat shots. Dave does not golf.
They went on a golf tournament the other day and didn't even invite me. I just learned about it.
And we were supposed to go down to the NCBA with John Deere in our contract. That wasn't going to work, so we just pivoted to that, and we're like, that sounds cool. I've never been to a professional golf tournament before, and you're seeing these PGA guys play, and we just walk in, and it was a great experience. I would suggest anyone to go. They really run it fantastic.
Even if you're not a golf fan, there's concerts. They really have kind of set it up for everybody.
If you're not a golf fan and you're a fan of agriculture, you're a fan of agronomy, period, show up at 10 o'clock, noon, Maybe eat before you go because it was fairly spendy for the food. But if you want the whole experience, show up for lunch, for a night of a concert, watch the golf through the afternoon, stay, watch the concert, and make that your experience.
Because the fairways, you know, seeing grass like that that is completely manicured, seeing grass that is six inches tall doesn't look like it is because it's absolutely beautiful. But you drop a golf ball in it, you're like, where did it go? Where did that go? And the equipment and making sure that everything's graded properly and then the event in itself. So it was an experience.
I'm excited to do it again next year. I think we'd do a couple of things differently ourselves, but I enjoyed it.
I think one of the coolest things is we got to interview the CTO. The new CTO, that was awesome. So we've recorded a lot of different places. And on a golf course was a first for us there. But in the realm of going to a golf tournament, I've been to pro football games. I've been to pro baseball games. And you see the people, but you can't get close.
This one, if they miss, like I'm asking Tanner, I'm like, what if they miss? They'll be like two feet from us. And they're like right there. Like, hey, there's the pro golfer right there. And he's like three feet away from us. Yeah. That, and just like our shirts, they have all kinds of cool drip or swag that is there. And people were asking, like, where'd you guys get your shirts?
Like, yeah, you can't buy these yet. So that was cool.
I really enjoyed, we got to interview one of the grounds crew. And I'm an agronomy nerd myself, graduated from Iowa State University. A lot of their grounds crew graduated. Iowa State has a fantastic turf management program. There's agronomy in everything, right? There's agronomy here at the show. I see people planted some corn over there.
Someone had to literally come and plant corn here three weeks ago to make it look like that planter was planting. It's crazy the amount of thought that goes into it.
Which is funny, right? Because the planter is not going to be in the field and the corn look like that at the same time.
Exactly. It's just a visual. But the cool thing about that tournament is John Deere, a lot of the flack that we get is John Deere doesn't... People say, why does John Deere have a golf tournament? That's stupid. they don't realize they raise money for over 500 charities or 400 charities.
And last year they raised over $14 million, you know, like the impact that they have locally and across the country. It's, it's crazy. So that's what that tournament is all about. Yeah.
And the golf course is ag. I mean, it is, you're growing grass and to make it look that good, you got to know what you're doing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We got to talk very briefly with one of the grounds crew and it was just fascinating. The passion that they have, the dedication they have and, This is their Super Bowl.
Yep. Oh, they were just, and they had custom hats just for the, it said, what did it say? Deer Run Agronomy or something.
I'm like, how do I get one of those?
I'm like, you can't. I'm like, come on. That'd be a cool hat.
Now we're going to scour the internet to find someone that used to work there and pay way too much for one of their hats.
Yeah. That was one sliding a koozie under the table did not work.
We did get one that says caddy.
Yeah. I got a caddy hat. Yeah. And those felt special. Yeah. Okay. So we know that this takes a lot of time, this media business. It's a lot of rigmarole. I mean, it's nice because our phones, we can work from anywhere. But how do you guys manage the farm? Do you have, like, a lot of employees back there? Because I know how much it takes to be in recording every day.
Yeah, so they have a... A team for Egg PhD that edits the show and films the show, basically. And then we have a couple of guys that are on the farm that work for us that do basically the day-to-day stuff, like spraying a bunch, because they're always out there spraying, combining, planting, and all that stuff. So they kind of have two separate sides of it.
And Egg PhD I've gotten into more, and social media takes a long time to...
edit and to post stuff all the time and so that's been a real learning process people don't realize how much that takes yeah it's a lot and i feel terrible like when i'm sitting staring at my phone and my dad and my brother are looking at me like let's go let's get this truck loaded let you know it's like okay i i compare it to auctioneering everybody thinks it's all about talking fast for five seconds that might be three percent of the job the other 97 is the marketing the brochures the talking with the customers the lining up the job cleaning the equipment etc etc
There's like this much, but every new person that wants to get into it says, oh, I just want to talk fast. I would relate the social media and the podcast side to that. And farming, really.
Everyone wants to go farm. They want to run the tractors. For five seconds. Really, it's three months out of the year that we're really in the tractors a lot.
and like not usually every day depending on how many how much acres you have but you're not in it every single day there's a lot to it i mean there's a lot to everything you do but just because it looks like that on social media too just like oh they're just driving combine or driving the combine today yep it i mean it takes a lot to line that up line up their grain carts line up their trucks all that
stuff, too.
Yeah. Talk about the hefty field day. We've never been up to it. We've wanted to go. Do you have much part in that?
A little bit. It's pretty much all hands on deck like the week before because everyone's setting up for it. And honestly, yeah, you guys should probably come up.
I've heard it's one of the best.
Yeah. But it's only one day, right? Yeah, it's one day. And you would love it because it's mainly focused on agronomy. So we have different plots that we grow for all of the different companies that are there. So they all have their own plots. And then my dad and uncle, they drive you through all the plots and talk to you about what every single person's doing.
And so then you get a chance to see what everyone's doing. You get a chance to talk to those people. And it's really fun. Yeah, it's a cool event. And It's down to more of a science now since we've done it so many times. It's pretty cool. It's a lot different than this because this has more permanent structures, a lot of equipment. It's bigger.
There's more people here because there's a lot more things going on, but it's cool. Why just one day? Because then you can be the happiest, smiliest person for one day and then you're done. So if you're doing that for three days, it's a lot tougher to do that.
And so my dad always says, you can be the most fun, happiest person, and be the best customer relations person for all the people that attend. And people there say that. I mean, they see you smiling and just having a good time because it's one day. And you can do it for one day if you need to.
And people have short attention spans now. Are they going to last more than two or three days?
The only thing I ask why one day is because I don't come to these shows for, I mean, I like seeing the big combines and that, but I do it for this, the networking, right? So, like, I hear one day and I'm like, when do we get together with everybody, right? So, what's the game plan? Do you come in the day before?
We have an after hours party at...
Well, yeah.
Let's have some of what we need. Well, first of all, we've never been invited to go. Yeah. So Mark's never been to Ag PhD Days. Yeah.
We're going to have to get you guys there, and then we'll have our own after-party thing. There we go. But, no, everyone comes in the day before, and then all the exhibitors and all the people working or people that are speaking, they all come in the day before, and there's like a little orientation where everyone talks, everyone has dinner before the show, and then the next day is just –
all hands on deck crazy and it's super fun so where do you stay or where is it at so it's at baltic it's at our farm literally on our farm okay um just 10 miles north of sioux falls and so i live in baltic so it's not too far of a drive but the traffic i mean at any big farm show it can kind of get a little crazy so there's enough hotels and airbnbs and stuff in baltic and around to keep everyone not baltic but in sioux falls so it's like it's only about 15 minutes away but
Have you been to Decatur?
Yeah. We always joke about our hotel in Decatur.
Oh, man. It was special. So tell me about the story then.
What was it, a Ramada? Corey's like, my window doesn't shut, and there's a knife through the screen.
He's like, I'm going to... No, no, that was Nebraska.
Oh, that was Nebraska. That was Nebraska.
I had a half-smoked cigarette on top of my dresser, mold on the walls in the shower, and
I had an open sucker. Someone licked the sucker and put it on the shelf. And I had like a candy bar in my hotel.
And you stepped in and it was like you stepped into a pool room and it was just humid and the air condition had been running completely. It was just like woofta.
A little rough, but hey, we survived. Hey, we go out to Rapid City. They got like a quad aquatic center there. Quad Aquatics. Yeah, there's like four hotels that all tie into like one aquatic center. It's a nice place. Yeah. How far is that?
It's far away.
I was going to say. It's just South Dakota and the one spot I could think of.
It's like here's Sioux Falls, here's Rapid City.
Oh, yeah. That's probably out towards Sturgis, right? Yeah, it's right by there. Yeah, they're all kind of close together. I actually had a great aunt that lived out there in Rapid City. I forgot about that. Yeah. We're getting dripped all over.
I'm watching it. I know we've moved some of our audience people away from the chairs because they were getting rained on. But, yeah, very interesting the way that you sit there and chat about a farm show at your farm. I think we need to get a giant motorhome camper. And don't worry about the hotel or whatever.
Yeah, wrap it too. People have honestly told us to do that. And so we built a studio last year, our own permanent spot in an old Casey's General store. But we were actually looking at a bus one time because then it could just be kind of mobile, have everything set up in there. Yeah. And it's still not taking it out of the realm of possibilities, but I don't know.
I think that would be cool. Then you could travel to all the shows and then be like, there's the farm for profit.
Yeah. RV.
Yeah.
They want us on a road show, but I don't know if we would like each other as much as if we had to – Sleep in the bus together.
I think we'd start writing music on the bus. It'd be a tour bus.
We've done the Airbnb thing, and that was handy. That was nice because you got a place to powwow. It wasn't a hotel lobby. Yeah. And you had your own bedroom to go to. We'd cook steaks instead of having to go get reservations at a restaurant. I think that's going to be our mode of travel from here on out. With a plane? Oof. Jeez, you guys have a big budget. Yeah. A plane, an RV.
We're talking to Zach Hefty here.
Prince Hefty, that is.
Maybe he'll let us borrow his plane. If we had one, I would let you. I can't believe you don't. No, they're so expensive. It's unreal. We don't really go around all the time.
Everyone comes to them. Did you see the air tractor that's supposed to be here? We need to go see that yet. The spray-in plane? Yeah. Like on the ground or in the air? It's here. It's got like... I don't know. It's right over there. I just wanted to go look at it again as we were talking planes.
I do like that. We've interviewed a couple of ag aviation pilots. They're wild.
Which, speaking about that, it's kind of... I mean, those guys are crazy, and it's so dangerous. That's why... I think drones eventually are going to be something that everyone utilizes a lot more, especially if you can't get through the field because it's so dangerous doing that. And, I mean, there's a lot of smaller farms.
Drones on, like, a big, wide-open field is probably not ready for that yet. But I think at some point it could be. And so that would be something that would maybe save some people, I guess.
So being from Montana, I'm thinking weed harvest. I'm thinking larger, wide-open spaces as you go to South Dakota. How much of yours is, like, what's the average farm? 160 acres? Or are you talking like... Farm size, like field size? Yeah, field size. Or are you talking like 1,000 acres or 500 acres? No, they're about that size.
I mean, we have some that are different and whatever. And we have some rolling hills and stuff, so it kind of gets a little challenging there, but... It's pretty, that's about the average size.
And Sioux Falls is just south of town. You guys got a big livestock auction, Sioux Falls Regional Livestock there. And I thought a packing plant. Do you know of a packing plant? I was just thinking the beef side of the world.
No, I don't know for sure on that. I know in like Sioux City they have a lot of stuff. I sent some hogs to Supreme.
I got you, Supreme.
So as you think about blazing your own trail, helping create a direction in which agriculture can learn, especially from you and the Hefty brand, what are some ideas you have?
Well, one of the things is just taking straight off of what we're already doing, doing basically Ag PhD, but on social media, because a lot of people now are just on social media. They're not always watching TV and stuff like that, or they're listening to podcasts. And so that's what I've been telling my family is, It's good to be on social media.
I mean, I get how it can be a little bit nerve-wracking right away in doing it. But that's where a lot of people are here to learn. And if farmers are on there wanting to get more information, that's where we should put out our short information that can help teach them or show them what they might want to change or try on their farm. And so that's where I think...
Doing more on social media is what I brought back to the business is wanting to be on there because that's where people are. And I want to show them, I mean, all the education that my dad and uncle have. Yeah, I love it.
So how do we get Farm for Profit and the Hefty team to start working together? That's what we need.
I heard they were talking to you guys, and you guys didn't want to be on the show or something. On Acres? Yeah, I don't know. I don't work with all of them. I just heard that I told them, I was like, we should have Farm for Profit. That would be a cool show to be on there, and they're like, I don't do that.
We're just like that pretty girl at the dance. We're playing hard to get. Rumors are bad.
We like Acres TV. We just haven't put anything on there yet, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, we can talk more about it.
We've talked to them a couple times, but maybe we should start with going to the field day. We've been trying to do deeper relationships because, you know, as a social media person, there are so many brands here. Yeah. So many. We've got to like it. We've got to back it. We've got to believe in it. They've got to believe in it.
And so a lot of the folks that we have, and maybe it's because we haven't had a chance to talk, but we like face-to-face.
yeah yeah yeah and i i think it'll be cool and i mean you guys are cool and it's fun i mean you guys if you ever were doing that with us then i mean we'd be able to hang out more see you guys and go into different another farm show that you guys haven't been to before well we we have made some uh changes that are coming here in the next two weeks that will allow us to more easily uh
put stuff on other platforms we'll just say that some hires and things like that so yeah we were just that really was it was just we were physically out of i mean max capacity i guess of what we could do and it's like man that's one other thing it was an experiment how much can we do and probably got too far extended and now we're we're uh gonna make up for that yeah that's great yeah this has been a lot of fun and appreciate you doing it first thing in the morning
Yeah. Hopefully it kicked your day off with the right kind of energy. It certainly did for me.
I really enjoyed it. It did. I'm distracted, though. Did you see just a Jackson thing? One of the John Deere employees just handed him a set of keys, and he ran over towards that X9. So I don't know what's going to happen here. Sorry, I digress. I like it.
We've been wrapping up all of our shows here with the same question. We want to know how our guests juggle their work and personal life.
That's a tough question. I think it's all about setting a schedule for me personally, which is straight up what Tanner does too. But putting out what you want to do or getting it done. That's why I come in here early in the morning. You get your stuff done, and then you can go do your other things or be with your family and stuff.
And that's what my dad always has talked to me about is setting your schedule or getting your stuff done that you need to and not procrastinating to –
wait on it because then you might have to do it at night and that's just not not the right time for doing work stuff you know unless you're dave dave works all night yeah you do the things you need to do when you need to do them then someday you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them that sounds we just get addicted to it it is
I saw it on a bank teller somewhere when I was getting some cash out of an ATM.
It definitely makes sense.
He had the word balance in there at first, and I told him to switch the word to juggle because it's not always a balance.
Yeah.
I mean, sometimes you get stuck, and you've got to come here for four days for me, and I mean, that's away from your family, but then other times you're doing other things with your family, and it's just trying to balance all that out, and it's tough for sure, but once you start getting into it and doing it, then you can juggle it a little bit.
I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse being close to home, like 10 miles from here. I like to go out to the trade show and go get a meal with a prospect or one of your partners and network. But now I'm expected to be home and get the kids on the bus and do that kind of thing.
That's why we do the after party. Yeah. We can see them all in one spot.
Yeah.
And, I mean, there's different ways of doing that, right? Like Tanner's wife is going to be at the after party getting things ready for us this afternoon. Mine's running my business all week. Yours is running your business, and mine is going to work providing health insurance and then taking care of the girls afterwards and all that. So it's like there's different ways to do it.
Yeah, and my girlfriend's a teacher, so she – Yeah, that's a good schedule, though.
Mine's a nurse at the school, and she went from the hospital there just so she could have the same schedule as the girls. Took a major pay cut, but –
They are.
That's funny.
Well, that's great, Zach. If people want to follow you, they want to touch base and connect with you, how do they do that?
So on all social media, my handle is at Zach.hefty, and that's where you can find me. I'm posting more stuff on there as I'm trying to balance my work and personal life, and it's really fun. But, yeah, that's where you can find me, or you can follow Ag PhD online. on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and we're doing posts on there too. So that's another way for farmers to get educated and check out.
Soon to be Prince.hefty.
Change my ad to Prince Hefty.
Oh, I forgot to ask.
How's the garbage sack brand?
You wouldn't even understand how many people, when I'd grow up, would sing that song.
Oh, really?
Hefty, hefty. I never even thought about it. It was unreal. Because people, I mean, all of them weren't farmers, so that's all they heard.
That's all they knew. That's great. That was even better than the way I was going to end it. I was going to say, and we've got some Farm Profit sunscreen there if you need it for the rest of the day. I will. We have sunscreen? No, I'm kidding. I was going to say, God, you guys have air fresheners. We have air fresheners?
I mean, that's what I'm going to the after party smelling like is one of our air fresheners. It's just going to get rubbed all over after. Oh, I brought like two things of deodorant.
I did too.
I brought cologne today.
It's not going to be a shower, but it'll be a full outfit.
What's in your bag? That's great. Awesome. Thank you for doing this. It was a pleasure, and I look forward to everything that we get to do together going forward. Yeah, thank you guys. Appreciate it.
So crack a cold one. You deserve it.