Have you ever heard the term, 'Farm Tuber?'
I hadn't either, but as it turns out
farmers are vlogging their daily lives in the fields
and it makes for really compelling content.
One of the biggest is Millennial Farmer.
Zach has made 390 videos, he has 760,000 subscribers.
He gets around 400,000 views per video
and he uploads around three times per week in season.
Let's hear the story of YouTube creator, Millennial Farmer.
Hey, Zach, there's a term I learned at work
that I had never heard before in my 15 years of being around YouTube
and it was 'Farm Tuber.'
I saw some of your videos and I was totally mesmerized.
It all made sense, the machinery is so interesting, the trucks, the tractors
there's weather, there's drama.
Can you tell us why you started the channel to begin with
in regards to running your family farm?
I started it 100% to relate to consumers about what happens
on the family farms in America, today.
I was seeing a lot of information about farms and about farming that
there was a little bit of truth to it, but the whole entire facts were not there.
The reasons that we use
the management practices that we use, was not there.
And so there's a lot of misinformation out there about agriculture
and why we treat livestock the way we do, and why we use genetically modified seed
and why and how we use pesticides and insecticides.
We have real reasons for managing the farms
the way that we do out here and we're using the best technology
that we have available to us, and that's the message
that I wanted to get out there to people, and show them
from the inside out, who we are as the family farmers
in the United States today.
I don't think I've ever even thought about
the fact that there are family farms, and other farms.
Can you just quickly tell us the difference?
I think that's one of the big misconceptions when it comes to agriculture
is the fact that 96%, 97% of all the farms in America today are family farms.
And if you were to drive by our family farm
and you see the big machinery, and the bin site, and the big sheds
and everything we've got going on: to somebody who doesn't know any better
it might look like a giant corporation.
But the fact is that we look different than we were 150 years ago.
We have big, efficient machinery.
We have on-farm storage, we call it, so we have big grain bins
we have big shops, we have some people that work for us
but we are still the same family farm that we were 150 years ago.
And most of the farmers today are that exact same way.
Farmers work long hours and we had to rush to schedule this interview
because I understand you're about to start seeding in the fields.
So, how in the world do you farm, do you set up your shots?
Do you go home and just edit and upload your videos every night
after working so many long hours in the fields?
That's how it started for the first year and a half.
I would go out and harvest
we'd start at 6 or 7 a.m. or whatever time we need to start.
That changes – if you watch the videos you'll see that that changes all the time
depending on what the weather is doing, and how things have gone to this point.
But yeah, I would start at say, 6 a.m. and we'd harvest and we'd work hard all day
and we'd be finishing up at 10 o'clock at night and I'd come in the house
and I would edit a video for two hours and post it online.
And it was a drain, it was difficult, it was a lot of work
but it was something that I was motivated to do, because the channel had taken off.
And it had gotten to a point where I felt like
I needed to feed the beast, as they say, I had created this monster
and I was proud of it, and I enjoyed doing it, and people were watching
they were excited about it
they wanted to know what was happening on the farm every day.
So my wife did at-home day care, for close to 10 years.
And she knew when we moved out here to the farm that it wasn't
what she wanted to continue doing; she enjoyed it, loved every minute of it
but we decided that maybe she should take over the editing.
We did that slowly at first, and then when we got into harvest
it was wide open, I was coming home every night
putting the SD card on the desk and the next day at lunch time
-she had the video posted. -Wow.
Whereas now I can concentrate on the farming like I need to.
And you know, it doesn't have to be super complicated.
I don't have a cameraman following me around, I don't carry a big tripod.
I don't have over-the-top complicated equipment.
I don't know anything about cameras.
If I bump a button, I have to go back in and set it to the factory settings
because I don't know how to change anything on a camera.
It's not my thing.
So I've got a small camera that fits in my pocket, not much bigger than my cellphone
and I've got it on a magnetic swivel.
Most of the time, as a farmer, I'm around some steel
somewhere I can snap that thing to it, hit record, and go to work.
That's what I was going to ask: how is he setting up a shot every time?
I didn't know if you had one of those flexible tripods
that wrap around equipment or whatever.
So it's a magnet?
It's a magnet, yeah, and then it's got a swivel ball on it.
So I loosen it up and magnetize it to something
and set it where I need it to be and go to work.
So it's not over-complicated, you don't have to complicate things.
Zach, I assume you'd recommend that other farmers consider this
as a part of what they do.
What do you think is the biggest challenge for a farmer
or a small business owner to get started on YouTube?
I think the biggest thing is that it's intimidating
and people are not sure exactly how to do it.
It doesn't have to be any more complicated than this right here.
Hop on your cellphone, it's easy to make the account, doesn't cost anything
you can make the video in a few minutes
and if you don’t like it, you can take it down.
You know, that's how I started it.
I put it out there, and I figured if I didn't like it, I can take it down.
I can delete it, I can get rid of it, and I didn't spend a ton of time at it
I didn't make it complicated, I just put the information out there
for people to see, and it wasn't difficult.
What about the objection that a lot of people have?
They're just worried how their friends and family are going to react.
I still struggle sometimes with, what do the neighbors think?
what do people think? But overall, it's 99% positive feedback that I get.
So having that positive reinforcement really lets me know that
even if I'm worrying about what other people are thinking
most people are enjoying what I'm putting out there.
Obviously, or else they wouldn't watch it, right?
So I think you can start slow and start small and see how it feels to you.
And if it's not for you, maybe it's just not for you.
- It's mostly in people's heads. - Yes.
A fear of what people will think.
So Zach, let's talk about revenue a little bit.
Obviously, only share what you're comfortable with
but how does the revenue that you make from your YouTube channel
compare to what you make on the farm?
I would say that the YouTube channel has really allowed me to be able to have
that other source of income to keep things going and to progress forward
and really help me be able to buy my way into the farm
because before the YouTube income, it was very difficult.
Looking at where the farm was, and saying
"OK, if I'm going to take this over some day
I've got to start making some pretty big investments here into this."
YouTube has given me that side income that's allowed me to say
"OK, I'm going to invest in a grain bin or
I'm going to invest in this piece of machinery
and I'm going to work my way into the farm, and percentage-wise
just kind of keep climbing up, and building my way into it."
And it's done that for me, it's been huge.
Yeah, I mean between you and your wife, you're putting in a lot of work
extra work, so I'm glad to hear it.
Alright, last question, along with running the family farm
is running the family YouTube channel going to be passed along to your kids?
So we don't know where this whole thing is going to go.
It's already gotten to a place that I never would have imagined
it could get to, just two, three years ago.
And so, I guess, we're just going to have to kind of play that by ear
and see where we are when the time comes.
Thanks so much for your time.
I love your story.
To everybody else, go ahead and subscribe to Zach's channel.
You will be completely entertained and you will learn a ton about family farms.
Hey, thank you, man, I appreciate it.