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Producers hope American Harvest reaches beyond farm audience


By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent

EVANSVILLE, Minn. — A Minnesota farmer whose operation is featured in a new television series said he hopes the project will help explain some of the complexities of modern agriculture to the general public.
The series, American Harvest, follows brothers Lance and Shawn Johnson as they lead their family-owned business, Johnson Harvesting Inc. The operation, based in Evansville in central Minnesota, is a custom harvesting company with customers throughout the Midwest.
American Harvest began airing Tuesday evenings on RFD-TV in early November. The show’s 13 half-hour episodes will also be available online a week after they’re shown on TV. The show is produced by CarbonTV.
“We felt that the series American Harvest was a very important story to share, especially since agriculture is getting more and more removed from modern society,” explained Lance Johnson, a co-owner of the business. “And by sharing our small part of the complex system of getting the world’s food from seed to the grocery store, we could possibly help the viewers realize what is all involved in the system – from the people, to equipment, to the technology and inputs, and to the amount of money modern-day farming takes to provide the world with some of the safest and inexpensive food in modern history.”
The show documents the work of the operation before and during the growing season from preparation to planting to harvest, according to RFD-TV.
In addition to exploring farming itself, the series also looks at community, relationships and “the marriage of old wisdom and new technologies,” the network said. “The basics of farming and harvesting haven’t changed much over the years. What has changed is the technology and the channels through which the money flows. The machinery is bigger, faster, loaded with computers, and more expensive. The stakes are higher with worldwide competition. The challenges are more nuanced with commodity traders, big corporations, various businesses competing for transportation, and a shrinking generation of new farmers.”
A goal of the program is to tell the story of the business of farming, said Dan Seliger, CarbonTV’s executive vice president of content and marketing. Over the course of the series, viewers will watch the Johnsons deal with technology, the challenges of making a living and public misconceptions about farming, he noted.
“It’s an intriguing and authentic glimpse into the modern American farming practices that ultimately make it possible to feed the world,” Seliger explained. “Most people don’t know what the business of farming entails: the scope, the magnitude, the challenges, the risk.”
The Johnsons, fourth generation farmers, were chosen for the series because they’re well-respected and because of their deep history in the business, he said.
The show is geared toward both farming and non-farming audiences, Seliger stated. “The farming audience specifically, and in general, CarbonTV’s core audience of rural and outdoor lifestyle enthusiasts will certainly find American Harvest captivating. The topic resonates with their lifestyle and values. Beyond that, we think that a series like this and a story like the Johnsons has the potential to reach a broader audience.”
Johnson hopes viewers come away from the show with an understanding of the hard work involved in producing the nation’s food. In addition, he wants them to learn “how we as famers and agricultural service providers care for our land, products, and the environment because if we didn’t, we’d not only be destroying our livelihood but also limiting what we can provide to a world that gets hungrier by the day.”
To find a local RFD-TV channel, visit www.rfdtv.com The show may be viewed online at www.carbontv.com/shows/american-harvest  The series is sponsored by Bayer Crop Science, Case IH and Shell Rotella.
12/3/2015