He calls it “Cogen's Farm.” David Cogen is happy to explain that after careful research and discussions with agronomists, he has already selected the corn varieties he will plant this spring.
But on a warm day in early March, Cogen is already feeling anxious and like a seasoned farmer. Perhaps he should plant earlier than his original plan. As it turned out, the weather was very warm.
Debates about hybrid seed selection and planting dates are the kinds of conversations that unfold in diners, coffee shops, hardware stores and hardware stores across Iowa each spring.
But Cogen's Farm is a little different. The farm near Bondurant is just 20 acres, a fraction of the 359 acres that the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers the average-sized farm in Iowa.
And Cogen is not your typical farmer either. He's from Brooklyn. Not Brooklyn, which lies along Interstate 80 between Des Moines and Iowa City, but Brooklyn, New York, famous for Coney Island and its namesake bridge.
With the support of his friends at John Deere, Cogen ventured into farming for the first time this year, attempting to grow and market crops profitably and sharing his experiences along the way on his social media accounts. I plan to share it. season.
Kogen's real job is as a social media technology influencer, offering his know-how to 768,000 subscribers on YouTube and 38,700 followers on Instagram under the name theunlockr. For about 15 years, his videos have garnered millions of views. Among them is a particularly famous one titled “How to make his Apple logo on his iPhone light up like his Macbook.”
In announcing his agricultural efforts earlier this spring, Cogen wrote: “I'm going to spend the next six months trying to till, sow, spray, and harvest this small 20-acre plot of land outside of Des Moines, Iowa,” he says. To be honest, it's a project I've wanted to do for years.
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“My hope is to show others what farming is really like. It's complicated and difficult and not what most people imagine. Oh, and don't worry, the technology will come. (and it's honestly some of the most impressive),” Kogen wrote.
Deere wants people to know that being a farmer is more than just “a pitchfork and overalls.”
Commuting from Brooklyn, he plans to start working in the fields and planting rice in April, return this summer to spray, and harvest the crop in the fall. Expenses such as farm and equipment rental, seed and chemical costs are included in the calculation. Deere funds the project but keeps track of costs, and Cogen knows he needs solid yields to make a profit.
He became interested in farming after watching British celebrity Jeremy Clarkson's documentary series “Clarkson's Farm,” and decided to try his hand at running the farm the TV host owns in the Cotswolds, according to the Des Moines Register. told.
For Deere, this is an opportunity to have prominent technology influencers highlight the company's “wow” innovations in monitoring, controlling and automating agricultural processes to achieve maximum efficiency and yield.
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“I think a lot of people who don't live in Iowa or around rural agriculture think of farmers as pitchforks and overalls. Farmers are very sophisticated businessmen and , a marketer and a technologist, it seems like the common link in helping people understand how their food is grown is technology,” said John Deere. said Franklin Peitz, technology and innovation PR manager at the company.
Peitz said young people's interest in technology provides a way to educate them about agriculture and how to grow food.
“Autonomous or self-driving cars are not really on the market yet. But we've had self-driving tractors for nearly a quarter of a century. “The adoption of technology in agriculture alone is phenomenal. , we have a really great story to share and we're just trying,” he said. To shed some light on it. ”
He said the project's ultimate goal is to educate people about how complex and difficult farming is and how many different decisions farmers have to make.
“I just want to make something out of the land.”
Deere was the first to reach out in 2021, asking Kogen and other tech influencers to work in Iowa, where it has several factories, and Illinois, where Deere is based in the Quad-Cities. provided an opportunity to come and try out some of the technology.
Kogen drove a giant deer combine and was hooked. When the company offered him the opportunity to try farming, he jumped at it.
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“I don’t think the average person knows what it takes to farm. They have an idea in their head of what it is, but it’s not true. “I think that's appealing to me as well, and I'd be happy if I could show people how difficult it is and how small the actual profit margins are,” he said. .
Kogen describes himself as a competitive person.
“If we can make any profit, we’ll be very happy,” he said. “That's what I want to do. I want to make something out of the land and get a good yield, not just lose money.”
Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Please contact kbaskins@registermedia.com.
