Jeff Caldwell

A Kansan by birth, Iowan by dumb luck and storyteller by vocation, I grew up on a cattle, wheat and row crop farm near Hoxie, Kansas, and still help manage the farm from 500 miles away, just south of Des Moines, Iowa. My collegiate (Kansas State University… EMAW!) aspirations to become the next James Herriot were scuttled when I realized veterinary medicine wasn’t for me, though my retirement plans someday involve a small cow herd and a big porch swing to share with my wife Emmy.

I entered the ag media in 2001 with the High Plains Journal (later moving to Successful Farming magazine and Agriculture.com), got to see a lot of wide-open countryside around the U.S. and learned from some of the best in that business before transitioning to the marketing/consulting side of the industry in 2015. When I’m not writing, pondering or brainstorming to come up with the best (albeit sometimes craziest) ideas for my ag clients, I’m trying to keep up with our three teenagers, including my often-unsuccessful efforts to remain hip to the latest Taylor Swift or Fantasy Football headlines. Or trying to train our dogs to speak English, blasting classic rock or country music, strumming a guitar or pedaling down the bike trail. I’m fond of saying I have other weird hobbies, like talking about a ruminant animal’s epithelial tissue functions or the mechanics of corn pollination. You can take the Kansas farm boy off the farm but…well, you know the rest. Life is pretty great.