Ag Leader at 25: From Garage to Goliath

By Eric Sfiligoj|September 7, 2017

For the past 25 years, growers and ag retailers looking to dabble in the world of precision agriculture have relied on various supplier-partners to accomplish this goal. One of the first to jump into this field, however, sprang from the mind of a single man with a vision for the future — Al Myers, founder of Ag Leader.

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A 25th anniversary sign on display at Ag Leader.
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Examples of Ag Leader technology throughout the past 25 years were on display.
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Ag Leader founder Al Myers addresses the audience at the anniversary celebration.
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The Ag Leader company mission statement from Al Myers.
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A SureDrive display.
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At one visitor station, Ag Leader gave attendees a chance to use its systems in a simulated spray rig.
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The company’s Travis Green manned the DirectCommand station.
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At the planting demo, attendees compared corn plants.

As the story goes, Myers was working at Danfoss Electronics in the mid-1980s when he began tinkering with the idea of creating a yield monitor. This way, he reasoned, growers would be able to track their crop yields as they harvested using their combines. By 1992, he had developed the company’s first prototype and Ag Leader was born. And the company is still going strong 25 years later, with offices around the globe in such regions as Australia, Europe, and South America.

In some ways, this scope still amazes Myers. “When I stood in my garage all those years ago, testing prototype after prototype of yield monitors, this day was only a faraway dream,” said Myers, speaking at the company’s 25th anniversary open house. “I never imagined where the yield monitor would take Ag Leader or the agricultural industry. In the past 25 years, precision agriculture has experienced widespread adoption, and today, many farmers probably can’t imagine farming without it.”

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From its early yield monitor, Ag Leader has diversified its product line-up to include such offerings as automatic steering, in-cab displays, cloud-based data storage/transfer, GPS systems, and most recently, tile installation.

But even with all this market penetration already in place for Ag Leader and precision agriculture, Myers believes the industry still has plenty of room to grow. “However, I also know the market for precision agriculture is still young,” he concluded. “There are still at least a few farmers out there ready to try this technology on their farms. That’s who we’ll be looking to help over the next 25 years.”

Sfiligoj is the Editor for both CropLife and CropLife IRON magazines. He travels regularly to cover industry events and has been dedicated to the ag retail industry since he joined the staff in 2000. See all author stories here.