For Greg Peterson and his brothers, farming is just part of the family tradition.
Greg and his two brothers, Nathan and Kendal, live and work on a farm in Assaria, Kansas, continuing a family tradition of five generations. They grow wheat, corn, soybeans, and a variety of forages for the cattle, of which they have more than a thousand.
“Our family immigrated from Sweden and began farming here in 1882,” Greg said. “We are just carrying on the work they started.”
Something their great-great-grandparents didn’t start was a YouTube channel.
On “Peterson Farm Bros,” the brothers put out educational videos about farming and agriculture, jokes and skits, and farm-themed parodies of popular songs. A few clicks in, you’ll likely find yourself in a deep rabbit hole, watching them dance and sing to “Farmer Style,” a parody of “Gangnam Style”; “We Will Milk You,” their take on “We Will Rock You”; and “I’m Farming and I Grow It,” a twist on—well, you can guess. With 291,000 subscribers and counting, the channel has made the Peterson brothers known by farmers and nonfarmers alike throughout the world.
“We started our YouTube channel with the intent of showing our farm to our friends and to people we knew,” Greg said. “Our first music video received 5 million views in a week. It made us realize this was something people are really interested in.”
The brothers are using their platform both to encourage fellow farmers and to educate nonfarmers about the work they and other farms are doing to feed them. Farming isn’t an easy occupation, and it can be easy to get discouraged when your livelihood is dependent on something as unpredictable as the weather.
“I think farmers can learn a lot from other farmers, mainly how different things are as you go from farm to farm,” Greg said. The brothers have seen a sense of community grow out of their social media channels, helping them forge relationships with farmers around the world.
Nonfarmers, who are often disconnected from the process of growing and distributing food, can gain insight into the arduous process that puts food on their table. Their videos make their work an experience that viewers can enter into, whether it’s the brothers driving around their enormous tractors in a music video or educating viewers on calving, the corn harvest, and dealing with the unpredictable elements of the weather.
Some are more extreme than others: “We are coming right up onto a tornado!” Greg says into the camera in one video. On the way home from vacation, right on the Colorado–Kansas border, he filmed a tornado that could be seen about five miles away. The video then transitions seamlessly into an update on the farm in July, flipping to Nathan working on the irrigation and baling hay.
“There is so much to learn about how food, fiber, and fuel are produced and the families behind it,“ Greg said. ”I think a lot of people are interested in getting to know the personalities, lives, and ’realness’ of the ones producing their food.”
Continuing a Family Legacy
For as long as the Peterson brothers can remember, farming has been part of the natural rhythm of their lives.“Growing up, this was our dad and grandpa’s farm,” Greg said. “We would help out as much as we could, more as we continued to grow.”
His earliest memories include riding along with his dad when he was a little kid.
“We used to play with farm toys, pretend to play farm inside the house, and now we’re all doing it for real, which is pretty neat,” Greg said. “We don’t have as many hobbies as other people—our work and our hobbies are the same thing.”
The brothers were raised on farm stories, learning from the wisdom of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
“Farmers have been through a lot. They’ve grown a lot, and they are generally wise people,” Greg said. “We have journals of our ancestors, stories about living through the dust bowl. My great-uncle is 101 and lived through both of the World Wars. He drove tractors into his 90s and still drives to check on cows today. I live in the house where he and my grandma grew up together. He has so much wisdom to impart.”
The farm was homesteaded in 1882 by Greg’s great-great-grandparents. They farmed through extreme circumstances: the Dust Bowl, poor markets, and war years.
“Our farm barely survived the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression,” Greg said. “My grandpa had to take over as a teenager after his dad died and his brothers were at war. Reading those stories makes us really appreciate what we have today.”
After college, all three brothers wanted to come back to the farm to work but weren’t sure that there would be enough income to support that. The success of their YouTube channel, merchandise sales, sponsorships, and entertainment bookings made that dream possible.
“Having off-farm income was huge in making that process work, but it also made it challenging in that we had to find time to get the farm work done as well as the video/traveling work,” Greg said. “Our dad was flexible and supportive enough to let us pursue all of our extracurricular stuff, but at the same time, he always made sure we weren’t slacking on the farm!”
Beauty in the Work
Working with the land also has plenty of challenges.“There are bad years where it doesn’t rain or when you have a big storm come through. You can fight insects or disease. But it’s the bad years that help you grow,” Greg said.
He said he believes that everyone needs something to get them through the hard times. For the Peterson brothers, it’s their faith.
“Our faith is interwoven into everything we do,” Greg said. “Whenever you are relying on the weather, taking care of life, or being a steward over creation, you feel connected to God. All the sunrises and sunsets we see here, the complexity of plants and animals: It’s all God’s work.”
He says that there’s a huge need for more young farmers. The average age of a farmer is above 60, and the world population keeps growing.
To increase interest and awareness about farming, the brothers offer farm tours and farm stays. On YouTube, they work hard to fight many of the misconceptions associated with agriculture and farming.
“People are quick to assume farmers are not taking care of animals, abusing the environment, raising unhealthy food,” Greg said. “We go to the same grocery store the rest of you all do.”
At the Peterson farm, animals are treated carefully and respectfully and given food that’s good for them and, ultimately, for the consumer.
When asked why he stayed, with all the challenges that face him, Greg said: “Because I can. We love farming.”
He loves the work: being outside, witnessing beautiful sunsets, and spending time with animals.
“If everyone knew what our work entails,“ he said, ”they’d become farmers.”
