Ag With Emma Helps Millions See The Truth About Modern Farming

When her grandparents were curious about her work in a seed production business during college, Emma shared her experience by filming videos. That was the beginning of Ag With Emma. Today, her YouTube videos have had more than 54 million views, and hundreds of thousands of people follow her on Instagram and TikTok. Her motto: Bringing you along in the buddy seat.

Watch Our Interview

Meet Emma

Agriculture was always a part of Emma’s life. She has fond memories of tagging along as her grandfather fed cows on the family’s Wisconsin dairy farm, and when she moved to southern Idaho as a child, she learned from her stepfather, who was a farm manager. That prompted her to earn an associate degree in general agriculture from a local community college.

Emma served as an ambassador for the school, giving tours of the ag department. She said talking with visitors made her realize just how little most people know about agriculture. “I was still in that same boat of not knowing everything. I didn’t have a lot of experience with production agriculture. I had never really driven a tractor. I had a very surface-level knowledge base,” she said. “But because I was growing my knowledge, I wanted to start sharing that with other people. I get super excited about things that I think are cool and then I just want to share it with everybody, so that’s why I started Ag With Emma.“

Emma enrolled in a university after community college, but quickly realized it wasn’t for her. She left school and became a farmhand, earning valuable real-world experience. As her platform grew, she said, “I started connecting with people all across the country, and I went on a custom harvest crew the year after I started Ag with Emma, because I just wanted to go do it. I saw a TikTok about it and I was like, ‘I just want to go do that.’” During the harvest, she brought viewers along in the buddy seat, sharing her work while dispelling myths about agriculture.

Local and Global

When a farmer she had worked with on the custom harvest crew hired her full time, North Dakota became her home. A year ago, she also began working for a local independent crop consultant.

After working with multiple crops, one stands out. “I love wheat harvest. I love growing wheat. I love watching wheat grow. I love going out and doing plant population stand counts. I love doing all the prep work for wheat. I love making fertilizer maps for wheat. I love walking through the fields of wheat to go get protein samples, and it always looks pretty on camera when I’m flying my drone, so wheat is really my thing,” she said.

One of the perks of custom harvesting was getting to experience many crops. “I also enjoy corn harvest for the pace of it. I think that’s really fun. And canola and sunflowers are really more of a unique harvest that not everyone gets to be a part of,” Emma said. “Every crop is different, and I’ve enjoyed that I’ve been able to be part of so many different crop harvests.”

Ag With Emma has led to opportunities to visit farms in Australia and all across the country. John Deere even asked her to help launch a new product. Her next trip will be learning about equipment in Germany. “I’m really excited for that because my bucket list goal is to operate equipment on all seven continents, so I’m knocking another one off the list,” she said.

Sharing Her Truth

Although farmers enjoy her content, Emma said her goal is to share agriculture with the rest of the world. “If we aren’t posting for those people, then we’re just preaching to the choir. I try to make it easy to understand so that people feel like agriculture is more approachable,” she said. “It really just comes down to consumers having a safe place to receive information that’s not biased and that is coming from true experience.”

People who share their lives on social media often stick to the highlights, but Emma has talked openly on her platform about losing her brother to suicide in 2024. She said she questioned that decision when some people dug too deeply into her family life. 

Still, she said, “It is a huge part of my story now and it is something that changed the course of my life forever and I can’t just hide that from the internet, but because of the way that I was able to share that and honor him and who he was while he was here … there’s a lot of people that just needed to see it to not take their own life as well, and I’ve gotten a lot of messages about that.”

Doing the Hard Things

When asked how she would spend a day with a friend who had never been on a farm, Emma said, “I’d teach them how to run a grain cart because that’s what I’m best at. During harvest crew, I went from zero to 60 real fast — from never operating a tractor to full-blown harvest crew. I’d say, ‘You have to come out during harvest for the rush and the thrill of it,” she said.

Another option would be to bring them along when equipment is broken down. “When you’re out there in the middle of everything, when something’s broken down, you just really learn a lot about yourself and about how much patience you have,” she said. “I would hate to give my friends the easy way out. I want my friends to learn and grow and if I had a friend that had never been to a farm, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do something hard today.’ And that’s just kind of how I’ve always handled Ag With Emma as well: We’re just going to go do something hard and we’re going to challenge ourselves a little bit, because that’s really where you grow.”

Episode Highlights

• Emma started Ag With Emma during college to explain her seed-production work to family, then expanded to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
• She grew up around ag — on her grandparents’ Wisconsin dairy and through her stepfather’s work as a farm manager — then learned production skills fast on a custom harvest crew.
• A North Dakota farmer hired Emma after seeing her work with the custom crew; she now also works with an independent crop consulting business.
• Wheat is her favorite crop, but she enjoys unique crops and challenges, from canola to sunflowers, and the adrenaline of different harvests.
• Ag With Emma has led to travel opportunities including Australia farm tours, coast-to-coast U.S. visits, and an upcoming equipment trip to Germany.
• She targets non-farm audiences with simple, respectful explanations that invite questions without judgment.
• Emma addresses common misconceptions fueled by marketing, including GMOs, chemicals, and labels like “antibiotic-free.”
• In consulting, she values independent advice, relationships, and tailoring data-driven recommendations to each farm’s priorities.
• Emma spoke candidly about grief and mental health in the wake of losing her brother in 2024.

Links and Resources

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Editor’s note: Emma requested that her last name stay anonymous for this article.