Millennial Farmers Make More Money on YouTube Than From Farming

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A number of millennial farmers in the U.S. are making more money talking about farming on their YouTube channels than from farming itself.

Farmer Zach Johnson, owner of the YouTube channel MN Millennial Farmer, told Bloomberg that he and his wife made five times more on YouTube in 2018 than from his family farm. Johnson also sells merch on the side, speaks at public events, and features endorsed products in his videos.

“Yes, we use GMOs, we use pesticides, drain tiles and irrigation and there are real reasons why we use those things,” Johnson told Bloomberg — a lot of his videos are in response to criticism that modern farming practices often face.

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According to the University of Illinois' Farmdoc project, an initiative that provides local farmers with marketing and management know-how, more and more farmers are reshaping themselves as content creators.

"Farm organizations and commodity groups have encouraged producers to be part of the conversation on social media," Keith Good, Farmdoc's social media manager, told Bloomberg.

And there's an audience for the videos. Some American farmers are racking up hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

READ MORE: Farmers Earn More From YouTube Than Their Crops [Bloomberg]

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