ON "60 MINUTES" SUNDAY: "AG TECH" IS CRUCIAL IN HELPING FARMERS THROUGH "CHALLENGING" TIMES, SAYS LAND O'LAKES CEO BETH FORD

More than half of American farmers lost money last year due to factors like weather, tariffs and persistently low prices. Farming will always be challenging, but technology is providing a hedge against the unpredictable, says the head of agriculture conglomerate Land O' Lakes. Beth Ford, the giant cooperative's president and CEO, shows Lesley Stahl who America's farmers are and how they are using technology to survive today's tough economic environment, on the next edition of 60 MINUTES, Sunday, Oct. 6 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Land O'Lakes employs roughly 10,000 employees who answer to Ford. She answers to the 4,000 farmers who are the owners of her agricultural cooperative, so she feels their challenges. "You've got trade issues and tariff issues. You've got a changing consumer and what they want," she tells Stahl. "I mean, there are so many variables right now - pressuring farmers. And this year, right now, the central issue for farmers is weather."

Technology is the driving force in most business sectors, and it's becoming just as crucial in agriculture, says Ford. "We use satellite technology. We use predictive models. We use all of the things that probably other businesses use." Satellite photos of fields reveal the low-yielding acres that are then tested to diagnose problems. Research Land O'Lakes conducts on test farms helps make planting and fertilizing more efficient by calculating the exact number of seeds or fertilizer required for crops.

Dave Estrem runs his 4,000-acre farm in Minnesota using the research data compiled by Land O'Lakes. Analysis of that data helps him control the amounts of seed, fertilizer and pesticide spread by his tractors, all equipped with computerized systems. On their dairy farm in Pennsylvania, Candice White and Amanda Condo monitor their 1,000-plus cows from apps on their smart phones.

"They're very sophisticated businesspeople, they are very tech-savvy. They have to be to withstand this kind of market pressure," says Ford. "It's exciting. It really is, and I think most people don't understand that agriculture is so tech-forward."

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