Nate Eggena Shares Farm Life with Thousands of Social Media Followers

Nate Eggena is a farmer from near Cedar Falls, Iowa who operates the family corn and soybean farm alongside his older brother. He shares his daily life on social media where he gives his followers a glimpse of life on the farm and a good laugh. In this episode of the 15 Minutes With a Farmer podcast, Eggena shares about how he got his start on social media, his time in college on the Montana State University Rodeo team, and his advice to other young farmers.  

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Meet Nate Eggena

Eggena is a fourth-generation farmer who grew up on a farm in northeast Iowa. When he was younger, he found a love of making videos using an RC helicopter and GoPro. Now, he uses his love of making videos and to share his everyday life with nearly 140,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined by highlighting the ups and downs of farming, his travels, and more. 

During his time in college at Montana State University, Eggena prioritized making connections and getting hands-on experience. He introduced himself to a farmer across the road from where he lived and started helping with his wheat harvest. And, with no prior experience, Eggena joined the rodeo team at Montana State as a steer wrestler, and hopes to continue with rodeo in the future. 

Advice Eggena strives to live by and has for other young farmers is to surround yourself with people who will push you to grow, go out of your way to make connections, and never apologize for asking questions.

Episode Highlights

• Eggena was recruited to play football in college, but ended up on the rodeo team at Montana State his senior year. 
• In addition to planting and harvesting at the family farm in Iowa and helping harvest in Montana, Eggena also operates a hay business with his older brother during the summer.
• Eggena went from attaching a GoPro to a toy RC helicopter to record videos to using a drone. 
• Eggena attributes his social media gaining attention to a video he posted in 2022 with Paul Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer” speech playing in the background, which now has over half-a-million views. 
• With no prior rodeo experience, Eggena was convinced to try out the “bulldogging” or steer wrestling event and ended up finding success at Montana State’s spring rodeo. 
• When asked what advice he has for fellow young farmers, Eggena emphasized the importance of who you surround yourself with, making connections with other farmers, and staying curious.

Links and Resources

• Give Nate a follow on Instagram and TikTok to see his farming content, travels, and more.

Transcript

Please note: This transcript has not been edited. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Welcome to the 15 Minutes With a Farmer from Successful Farming. I’m Lisa Foust Prater. Today’s guest host is Sophie Winkelpleck, a senior at Iowa State University serving an apprenticeship with us at Successful Farming. Today, Sophie has a chat with Nate Eggena, who splits his time between Montana and running a hay business and farming with his family in northeast Iowa. 

In each episode, we have a quick 15 minute conversation with a farmer to hear their story and share their experience, expertise, and life lessons. 

Nate Eggena: Yeah, so I grew up on a farm in Northeast Iowa, just north of Cedar Falls and grew up far in my whole life. And then got to high school and kind of tried to figure out what I want to do with my life, I guess. And by that time COVID struck and I was kind of thinking of, well, I graduated in 2020 and my graduation got, or my school got cut short from that and everything went online from there. And I was kind of just deciding what I wanted, where I wanted to go. I got a couple colleges that wanted me to play football for them. And I don’t know. I had a, I always had something pulling me towards the West and I always loved skiing and stuff out in Colorado and the mountains and stuff like that. And I figured, you know, why not try when I’m young, you don’t have any kids or family yet or kind of just by myself. Why not try and see what it is like out there? And, I kind of looked for ag schools out there and found Montana state, just in a class one day and got to thinking about it more and more. And then I ended up taking a visit out here and just fell in love with it. And it just felt like home to me. And so then I, decided to come out here my freshman year college and I kind of was like yeah if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out but if I’ll just head back home but if it works out great and it turned out to be a great experience for me I learned a lot I guess I learned more on the weekends than I did in during the week I made a lot of friends and went to a lot of their ranches and learned a lot about the cattle industry because I actually grew up we didn’t have any animals well we had

We raised a couple of pigs and sheep for the fair, but that’s about it. And, so I learned a lot about the cattle industry out here and definitely, learned a lot more on the weekends than I did in class. That’s for sure. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. now I’m, I’m kind of, I go back in the summer or in the spring and help, the family farm plant. And then I stay out there for. We do hay in the summer with me and my brother got a hay business. then in the fall I help with harvest. Well, so then we get done with hay and then it’s kind of funny story. My sophomore year of college here, I got a place out here. I rented a place and across the road, there was a farmer harvesting wheat with the Bridgers in the background and like, Oh, that’s pretty cool. So I ended up taking some pictures and videos just because it was just a beautiful sight to see and the farmer came up to me and he’s like, Hey, how’s it going? And we got to talk a little bit. And I said, Hey, I’m a farmer and I kind of know how to run a machinery and stuff like that. I grew up on a farm in Iowa. And so I’ve got talking more and more. I said, Hey, if you ever need help, let me know. And he luckily said, yeah, definitely. He said, we’re finishing up harvest this year, but next year for sure. And so we just stayed in touch and the next year he actually needed help. So me and my brother actually came out. My brother came out and I had college my uni year. So I kind of just helped whenever I didn’t have class. And so, yeah, I made a really good connection out here with that. And so I, I do planting for home. I kind of back and forth from Montana and Iowa right now I do go home for planting and hay and then I come out here for Montana’s harvest which is like late August, early September and by that time, by the time Montana’s harvest is finished with their wheat then I come back home to Iowa and do their harvest. So I’m kind of back and forth from Montana and Iowa, the mountains but I also enjoy the home farm back home in Iowa so kind of a I kind of got some wandering feet I guess.

Sophie Winkelpleck: Yeah, that sounds like you stay busy for sure. Like that’s a lot of back and forth and that’s awesome that connection that you made with, yeah, that farmer in Montana. Something that I think is really interesting is you have over 82,000 followers on Instagram. I wanna know how that got started and when that really started to pick up steam.

Nate Eggena: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s kind of funny how it worked out. I just, I always loved making videos. My brother got a drone and like, I think it was middle school and I ended up flying it more than him. just loved, you know, I, when I was like a little kid, put, had like a little RC helicopter drone and I put like a GoPro on it and see if I could fly with the GoPro on it. And it was just shaky. It was really bad video, but then they ended up making drones later on and they got to be more popular and I kind of just got caught onto those and I always loved making iMovie videos on my GoPro’s and stuff like that. So yeah, I just kind of always had the love for making videos and growing up on a farm, people are really curious about that and love to see what goes on in the farming operation. I just started kind of posting videos.I guess the first video that really popped off for me was the God Made a Farmer video by Paul Harvey. I kind of put a cool sound behind it and that’s the video I pinned. I just posted it just for my friends to see and ended up getting a lot of attention. So that was kind of my initial boost out in the world and I just kind of fell in love with it after that. And just ranching with my buddies and stuff and kind of my buddies got a truck and trailer and he hauls hay and he kind of lives up in a really remote place through a canyon and another like another video like that popped off. And so I just started gaining traction and people started to kind of follow me that way. And I’m kind of all over the place with my Instagram right now because it’s always Iowa and Montana and a lot of people don’t really know what’s going on half time, but no, it’s a lot of fun I enjoy it. That’s for sure.

Sophie Winkelpleck: Going back to Montana State, your experience there, I saw that you joined the rodeo team and did, I think, steer wrestling. Correct me if I’m wrong, but tell me more about that and what led you to join. 

Nate Eggena: Absolutely. It was my spring semester, my senior year. And I had this Ag marketing class and I was kind of helping this buddy with his homework and he was on the rodeo team. and we were kind of just talking crap, you know, just having, you know, not really working on our homework or anything. And he’s like talking about rodeo and he’s like, you know what, you look like a bulldog, which is a steer wrestler. And I’m like, dude, that would be so fun if I could do that. I just thought it would, I just was just saying that. I’m like, dude, that’d be so fun if I could try that sometime. And he’s like, you know what? We need, we’re in need of a steer wrestler, another steer wrestler. So he’s like, you can come to my coach’s office and we can talk about it after this. And I’m like, sure. And so I walked into his office and met coach Kyle Whitaker and I’m just like, Hey, I’m just a farm kid from Iowa. I’d love to give steer wrestling a try. And Montana State, tt’s a pretty big rodeo school here. I mean, it’s, it’s like, and it’s like, it used to be a club sport, but it’s actually a school sport now. And so it’s a pretty, pretty cool deal. And so that actually, I think that night he’s like, you can come to the, come to the barn and, I’ll have you run some steers on the ground. And so that night, this was after Montana or college game day came to Montana State for their Brawl of the Wild game. And Pat McAfee actually went to the barn and wrestled a steer. So, Kyle Whitaker put me on the same steer that Pat McAfee wrestled. And so I ended up wrestling him. I put him to the ground and Kyle was like, you know what? I think you’ve got some potential. And so we ran a couple more and he’s like, you know what? Yeah, this, this might work out. Geez, I mean, the spring rodeo rolled around really fast and it was like, I think the end of March and the rodeo was like, I think the 10th of April. And I still hadn’t caught a steer off of a horse. So coach put me on his horse named Ace and during practice I tried seven times and I couldn’t get it down. I couldn’t catch the steer off the horse. So I was getting pretty down on myself. And so by this time it was like three days before the first spring rodeo at MSU and Coach called me he’s like, so I don’t know if you’re ready for this rodeo. Maybe we should just wait a week. And I go, well, my mom’s coming from Iowa. I think I better ride. I kind of talked him into it. He’s like, how? All right, I’ll sign you up. And so, uh, had it caught a steer off a horse. I was so nervous that whole couple of days leading up to and just kept praying about it and just kept, you know, processing in my head, like what to do and all the tips the, all my teammates were giving me and coach was giving me. And so I got to the rodeo and I was actually in the perf that night. So they have 10 guys like in the perf, which is like, not the slack. It’s the first night of the rodeo. And so there was like tons of fans, everybody was going crazy. All the college kids were going crazy and I was just so nervous and I jumped on Ace and I don’t know what it was, but I ended up catching that steer and press on it down and made it to the short go the next, the next night. So yeah, that was a super crazy experience for me. Then, I ended up not catching the steer in the, uh, in the, what do you call it? I ended up not catching the steer the next night, but then the next week we went to mile city and I ended up winning that first rodeo. So that was pretty crazy from not going to catching the steer at all to ended up winning, uh, mile city. And then the next weekend we had a rodeo in Missoula at the Grizzlies rodeo and, um, ended up making it a short go on that. So that was a really cool, cool experience for me and something I’ll never forget. That’s for sure. And I hope to do rodeo in the future. It’s just about, you know, finding, finding a horse and getting all into that. So yeah, I’ve kind of been practicing a little bit more and more with some Wisconsin guys, but yeah, hopefully I can continue that.

Sophie Winkelpleck: Well, that’s super cool. It sounds like you were just kind of able to perform under pressure when it counted. 

Nate Eggena: I guess if you want to call it that. 

Sophie Winkelpleck: Yeah, yeah, mean, doing it when it counts. But yeah, just to kind of wrap up our conversation, like, you’ve already had what sounds like just some really cool experiences. What advice might you have for other younger farmers or just people wanting to dip their toe into agriculture?

Nate Eggena: That’s a really great question. I’d say my number one piece of advice would be you are who you surround yourself with. That’s been my number one piece of advice to anybody or just myself too is just like, you’re gonna be who you hang out with. If you wanna hang out with some lazy people, you’re gonna be a lazy person yourself. Hang out with some, I always try to hang out with people that are like a little bit better than me, whether that be financially, know, like religiously, whatever it may be. I think it’s a super important, you know, lesson that just, gotta, you gotta hang out with the right people and they’re gonna build you up. That’s for sure. And that’s kind of what I learned and just looked like agriculture too, like just, you know, find the right people. Another thing too is it’s, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, you know, so find a, find a farmer out there. If you’re, if you’re wanting to get into ag, find a farmer that needs some help, help them out, you know, learn about it that way. Ask questions. I asked so many questions. People kind of get tired of me asking questions, but I love to learn and that’s, that’s something that I will never like be sorry about is asking questions. Ask as many questions as you want, no matter how many, how people, you know, view, say, I get called an interrogator all the time, but I just, I’m genuinely curious about stuff and love learning. I’m a big learner. And so yeah, just, you know, just you are who you hang out with for sure. So that’s, that’s one of my biggest, biggest tips, I guess. 

Sophie Winkelpleck: Yeah. That’s an attitude that I think will take you far and is definitely helpful in an industry where there’s a lot to know and a lot to learn. Yeah, well, thanks so much Nate, I appreciate the time. 

Nate Eggena: Yeah. I appreciate you reaching out to me and I appreciate you being a voice for ag too. That’s awesome. 

Lisa Foust Prater: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Open the latest issue of Successful Farming and visit us online at agriculture.com for more interesting features and news for your farm and join me next week for another episode of 15 Minutes With a Farmer.