As I type this introductory blog post, I'm somewhere over the southeastern US on my way to a social media conference in Nashville. Like you might expect of a technology conference, the place will be filled with techies comparing the latest and greatest in smartphones and tablets, debating the merits of Apple vs Google vs Microsoft, and discussing strategies for driving traffic to their websites. What you might not expect is that the attendees who are so into all of this technology are farmers, ranchers, and other members of the food supply chain. It's the only conference in the world where Windows and Mac will be argued as voraciously as Ford and Chevy, Deere and Case, and Black Angus and Hereford (Chevy, Deere, and whatever will eat my corn, if you were wondering).

At the beginning of 2009, I started finding farmers from all over the country using this up-and-coming social network I was playing around with called Twitter. As we started connecting with each other, many of us discovered that we had similar concerns about how disconnected from the farm the public had become (I'm sure everybody has a story about a friend who thought milk and eggs just came from the grocery store). To make a long story short, a community of farmers, ranchers, and anyone with an in agriculture developed rather quickly around a weekly chat on Twitter called "#agchat", and in 2010 the AgChat Foundation was started to help train farmers to use social media to build bridges with a disconnected public (full disclosure: I serve on the foundation's board of directors). The social media conference I'm heading toward is the second annual training conference, where as we try to settle once and for all whether the iPhone or Droid reigns supreme, we'll also work to equip farmers to tell their stories as effectively as possible. (Check out agchat.org for more information.)

It's been really fun to see this community develop and to see the connections that have been made with people otherwise unconnected to the farm. I hope to use this space to show you how I'm using technology to connect people with my farm, how we utilize ag technology in general, and to give a glimpse of what life is like on our family farm in Nebraska.

Zach Hunnicutt is a fifth-generation farmer in Hamilton County Nebraska who raises corn, popcorn, and soybeans with his dad, brother, and a neighbor. He also raises a son and a daughter with his wife, Anna.