Farming is the backbone of society. Even with the advances in technology that we have now, it’s still one of the most important industries, and one of the few without which the world could not function.
But, it’s still rare to see people truly go from being farmers, working the land, and trying to compete in the markets with increasingly slimmer profit margins and higher equipment and operating costs, to working in and running successful businesses as CEOs.
For many of the people who do make the transition, farming and farm life often remain a passion, and something they work to support either directly through their businesses, or indirectly through charitable practices.
Here are 3 farmers who became CEOs, what they do, and how they continue to impact farming and farm culture today.
1. Frank VanderSloot of Melaleuca Inc
Frank VanderSloot is a huge name in the farming industry, specifically ranching, but his successful career has not been focused on farming.
Frank VanderSloot is the CEO and founder of Melaleuca Inc, a health and wellness company that sells a wide range of products, from supplements to essential oils, home cleaning products, and more.
However, Frank VanderSloot grew up on a farm, taking care of animals, and that continues to be one of his passions. VanderSloot has shown his dedication to the farming community numerous times, including when he took on a dairy factory after Kraft pulled out, solved profitability problems, and then sold the company once it was successful. It’s apparent that his goal was really to save the dairy community, not own the factory.
Not only interested in keeping farming going, but Frank VanderSloot also works to protect supply chains, provide infrastructure, and stabilize supply and demand balance in ranching so that ranchers can keep doing their best.
2. Jesse Volmar of Farmlogs
Jesse Volmar is young when it comes to entrepreneurs and CEOs, and has recently been named one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 thanks to his innovations with Farmlogs.
Growing up on a farm taught Volmar much about the industry, from a love of the land and the work, to how volatile and precarious farming can actually be. When you’re in an industry that’s dependent on the weather, local water restrictions, and a market with constantly shifting prices, he realized that accurate and reliable data is critical.
Unfortunately, aside from the knowledge passed down over generations of doing farm work, there wasn’t a good source of data, and that’s more important now than ever when conditions are changing and farmers aren’t just having to anticipate the weather, but also crop prices, shipping costs, and other market factors.
So he created Farmlogs, a farming app that not only catalogs and automates the day-to-day function of a farm but also gives farmers access to data from other farmers so that the whole industry can better adjust and move to anticipate changes in conditions, markets, and more.
Like VanderSloot, we’re excited to see what Volmar comes up with next when it comes to farming innovation.
3. Alli Cecchini Erggelet of First Generation Farmers
Farming has long been a family business, something that gets passed down from one generation to the next but only rarely attracts new farmers and new farm families. Even worse, new farmers often have a hard time finding success, since they don’t have the advantage of generational knowledge informing their farm practices or how they manage their land.
Alli Cecchini Erggelet is looking to change that with First Generation Farmers, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching new farmers, especially young people interested in farming and farm culture, how to run a successful farm.
Starting with just a few acres gifted from her family’s farm, Erggelet’s work with First Generation Farmers has turned into owning her own farm outside of Brentwood and working on a law degree, specifically to tackle issues of criminal justice reform. Between these two passions, Erggelet is well placed to transform the nature of farming, and just maybe, to start reviving the same family farm in place of more giant agricultural conglomerates that have dominated the space.
Like VanderSloot and Volmar, this entrepreneur isn’t just interested in farming, but also in keeping farming something that families can do, a personal industry instead of a purely corporate one.
