On "Farmtok," agriculture gets its moment in the spotlight. What would it mean if that disappeared?

BUCYRUS, Ohio (AP) — Zoe Kent hopes people get a little joy out of her talking about farming on the Internet. In one of her latest videos, she compares pesticide application to dry shampoo. “Farming is for the girls,” she quips.

On Instagram and TikTok, under the handle “farmwithzoe,” Kent films herself putting on boots to load corn into a massive truck bed, posts memes about the price of grain and documents just about everything else about farm life from getting rocks stuck in her equipment to eating lunch on long days out in a combine.

Now, the future of TikTok — and “Farmtok,” as some creators call the ecosystem of farm-related influencers online — has become more uncertain, thanks to a ban the U.S. government briefly implemented on TikTok over the weekend. That was followed by the new Trump administration rescinding that ban, at least for now, but farmers are all too aware that things could change, and with them, the ways that they share farm life with the rest of the world. But most say they’ll keep adapting to whatever the platforms throw their way.

“It’s building your business on rented land, if you will,” Kent said. “It’s not guaranteed to be there.”

Even before the uncertain threat to TikTok’s future, farm creators had to contend with social media’s evolution. As algorithms changed, they faced greater challenges communicating with a public that many see as increasingly disconnected from agriculture.

But most say they’ll keep adapting to whatever the platforms throw their way. Some producers make extra money by building a following on TikTok or Instagram. Others use social media to advertise to local customers like restaurants or farmers’ markets. Perhaps most importantly, they want to continue to build community with other farmers in the face of industry challenges like the toll of the profession on mental health, economic pressure and climate change.

Multiple farmers said that disconnection has grown over the years as social media algorithms have changed. “I know for a fact our social media reach is greatly diminished now,” said Beth Satterwhite, who has been posting about her small organic vegetable farm in McMinnville, Oregon on Instagram for over a decade now. “On the ground stories of people working in agriculture are a little less interesting to the consumer — I don’t know if it’s actually less interesting or just less visible,” she said.

Neil Denton, who farms corn, soybeans, wheat and rye in Barlow, Kentucky, shared a similar sentiment. He thinks that many of his over 80,000 followers on Instagram and 33,000 followers on TikTok are fellow producers, not members of the public. He calls that “disappointing" and worries about how little people know about the food that ends up on their plates.

But he does think there's a silver lining: “Farming is a lonely occupation because you’re not with a lot of coworkers,” Denton said. “I think some farmers use social media as an outlet...to be able to express yourself and to be able to feel like you’re not lonely.”

Within the farming community, it can also be useful to learn from other farmers, many producers said. Megan Dwyer, who grows corn and soybeans and raises beef cattle in northwest Illinois, uses social media, especially X and Facebook, to gauge what matters to other farmers. “It's a great source for information, especially rapid information,” she said.

However, all that rapid information does have a price. Satterwhite described a “language soup” around agriculture, saying it could be hard for an outsider to tell what farming practices are legitimately better for the climate or environment. “I see a lot of greenwashing,” said Satterwhite, referring to the practice of falsely portraying a product or practice as eco-friendly to market it to an environmentally-conscious audience.

“There’s definitely a lot of misinformation out there,” Kent said. “I try to sift out who has genuine questions versus who just already has a stance and they’re not willing to hear me out."

That's something many farming influencers agree on — that they still want a place to have the conversation.

As Dwyer put it: “You never know who you’re influencing there or or what may happen.”

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Walling reported from Chicago. ___

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social. Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel.

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