If you’re a fan of TikTok, Tyler Tobald of JTAC Farms does a great job of breaking through the marketing to give honest on-farm reviews. The young musician-turned-farmer lends a unique perspective to his family’s farming operation that includes capitalizing on out-of-the-box opportunities and practices with a focus on technology. 

Dr. TikTok, as our host, Mike DiPaola, Chief Commercial Officer, jokingly refers to Tobald, has been making waves on the social channels and, in doing so, inadvertently sharing a message that is near and dear to the Taranis mission: making agriculture better by bringing small communities together through information and using service to bring people closer. 

A Central Valley Ag customer, the north central Kansas farmer, tells us that the 2023 growing season was his 10th year of farming, sharing that his road back to the tractor cab took the long way around the barn. 

“I was a musician growing up. I went to Kansas State University on multiple musical scholarships, but burnout brought me back to the farm, looking for what I wanted to do with my life. I realized about four months into working on the farm that I had found myself more than I had in the past four years of college,” he shares, adding that the career change didn’t come without a learning curve. 

“Farming was not an easy thing to do, especially my first two years—I don’t enjoy being the dumbest person in the room, and I found myself listening to people talk about herbicide rates and fertilizer blends. I knew that I had a lot of self-learning to do.”