Meet Today's Millennial Farmer James Alford

I'm Susan Allen Meet the today's millennial farmer! James Alford, Franklin County Farm Bureau President farms over 6000 acres in the Basin..... off his laptop. 6000 acres! That means everything?

Alford: Correct, everything! Remote sensing equipment, which is our moisture monitoring, our rain catch irrigation data, temperature humidity out in the field, all of that's real time and that comes in through our ipad. Our irrigation pivots, our tractors, our other equipment, trucks,..... everything runs off of real time data coming in through the ipad a lot of that is stuff we can fully control. So that's kind of the goal, well continue to conserve water, continue to conserve our nutrients, they are all finite ....and grow more, and also take care of the soil so yes. technology is going to help us be better stewards of the land.

And that was his hook for farming

Alford: I came into farming out of high school working with my dad technology was something I lived with every day, like the GPS steering in the tractor, and everything else and that was actually what I found the most interesting, more so than farming, farming actually came secondary to that. There was obviously more novelty in the technology side of it. And so we were able to be early adapters and implementers of technology just because my dad essentially turned me loose and said if you think it's a good idea lets try it out. If it doesn't work we will through it away and start on the next thing.

Generational respect a great recipe for family business and a reason why Alford farms are one of the most progressive in the state.