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Young entrepreneur combines passion for farming, tech

The InfoAg Conference, which took place this week in St. Louis, is about blending high technology with agriculture.  Jesse Vollmar is a young man that has made a success out of his passion for both.

Vollmar co-founded FarmLogs four years ago and describes his company in terms that could describe many of the InfoAg exhibiters.

“FarmLogs is a company that helps farmers take advantage cutting-edge science that’s implemented into software and delivered through a very beautiful, easy to use product,” Vollmar told Brownfield Ag News following a presentation at InfoAg on Thursday.

FarmLogs collects weather data and measures the health of crops at precise points in a field.

That’s attracted customers and also the attention of Forbes Magazine, which named Vollmer to its 2014 list of 30 under 30 in Energy and Industry.  He was 25 at the time he was put on that list.

“That’s great, you know, but really what it’s all about is just being at the intersection of the two things I love, farming and technology,” said Vollmar, downplaying his place on the Forbes list.  “I grew up on the farm; my roots are in agriculture, but I really fell in love with technology at an early age, and here I am now able to bring those two things together.”

Vollmar’s FarmLogs released its latest piece of hardware Wednesday at InfoAg.  “We’re actually able to use cutting edge technology to plow it right back into the roots that I had in agriculture.”

AUDIO: Jesse Vollmar (6 min. MP3)