Dan Aberhart sits down with Jaeda Hoppe, an independent agronomist who runs Hoppe Agronomy out of Biggar, Saskatchewan. She went out on her own at 24 after two farmers tracked her down through her mother's hair salon, and four years later she still has the same original clients. The conversation works through what an independent agronomist actually gets paid for — not secret products or magic bushels, but timing, follow-through, and the discipline to keep a producer's decisions on schedule — and closes on how she's learned to compartmentalize stress the same way the best farmers she works with do. Producers and young agronomists both get something here: a clear-eyed account of what the job actually is once the theory runs out.
Every farmer has somebody they call. The story we tell about that is a
farmer who doesn't know what he's doing, hiring someone else to think
for him. Jaeda Hoppe thinks that story is wrong.
She went independent at 24, after two of her clients tracked her down
through her mother's hair salon and asked her to work for them
privately. Four years later, she still has the same five clients she
started with. This conversation is about what she actually gets paid
for, once the theory runs out.
What's Inside
- What a producer is actually paying an independent agronomist for, once
the theory runs out
- Why she recommends every young agronomist start in ag retail, even
though almost nobody treats it as an end goal
- The built-in objectivity problem when a retailer's margin depends on
which product they recommend
- Why she's seen close to zero measurable results from the biological
products she's evaluated
- Compartmentalizing stress: the skill she says separates the farmers
and agronomists who last from the ones who don't
- Her weekly Sunday text subscription sharing field observations, and
why she built it
Connect with Jaeda Hoppe
Hoppe Agronomy
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