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Beth Ford, executive director of the $15 billion Land O’Lakes farmers’ cooperative, sometimes seems more like an activist than a big Ag CEO. In the most recent episode of the Fortune podcast “Leadership Next,” Ford talks about his cause: bringing generation to rural communities that want it to the pandemic and the fashion world that occasionally advances without them.
Your access point in this combat is to meet the need for broadband access in rural America. A third of rural schools do not have access to broadband, he said, affecting everything from farmers’ paintings to schooling and telemedicine visits. To provide access to those communities, Land O’Lakes and Microsoft are coming to a join. Ford and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella can make a difference at the point of the farm by employing generations and partnering with health care organizations, government officials at local and federal points, and other teams who care about the cause.
“It’s not just a rural problem. We want to sense that. It’s a U.S. competitiveness problem,” he said. “It is the other people who grow up, the ones that feed us. That’s not a problem for others, that’s our total problem.”
Once critical broadband access is more established in rural communities, Land O’Lakes and Microsoft will expand their high-tech, data-rich farm systems that can provide data on climate, crop yield, and more to an acre. “From there, ” said Ford, “we can make all sorts of recommendations. We can work with farmers to locate the maximum livelihood, maximum profit and maximum productive.”
The accumulation of knowledge and generation is “without a doubt the direction that the food industry is taking,” according to Beth Kowitt, a Fortune journalist and food industry expert. In his reports, Kowitt says he has not noticed that any other CEOs are so visual on the subject. And because agriculture has been slower to become familiar with the generation and its myriad uses in its business, Ford’s defense is a welcome replacement for the norm.
“We depend on those communities to feed ourselves,” Kowitt said. “Their good fortune is so fundamental to the way we function as a country, and I think [Ford] knows they have to be strong, that there will have to be a compelling explanation of why the next generation will stay and paint in their jobs.”
Hear how Ford thinks his prestige as the first blahingly gay woman at CEO of a Fortune 500 company affects his leadership (or not), how he believes the advertising technique for the home networks will replace after the pandemic and why Land O ” Lakes chose to remove a Native American woman’s symbol from her packaging , pay attention to the entire episode.
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This story was originally featured in Fortune.com