Growing up on a farm taught me certain values—hard work, ingenuity, and independence. Hard work means you stay in the field until late at night because a storm is coming. Ingenuity means you figure out how to fix a machine by yourself when you are miles from home. Independence means personal responsibility. After years of practicing law, these values drove me to start a new law firm centered around my passion--agriculture. That is why I founded Janzen Agricultural Law LLC.
Now is the perfect time. The pace of agricultural efficiency improvement in the past decade has been incredible. Tractors, combines, and other agricultural equipment--modern versions of industrial machines invented a century ago--can traverse acres at speeds inconceivable a few years ago. GPS guides machines on autopilot. Engineered crops resist disease, lessen erosion, and improve yields. Robots milk cows. And now drones scout crops. Modernization has made farming more efficient than ever.
Agriculture is at an amazing crossroads today. The future of increased production lies not only with increasing speed, precision, and efficiency, but analyzing the data that farming generates for continual improvement. As a result, after years of consolidation, agriculture is now sprouting new companies and new divisions in legacy companies to better collect, analyze, and utilize farm data. The law will have to evolve and adapt to this new reality, and I want to be ready to meet these challenges.
At this crossroads between modern and emerging technologies I decided to build a new law firm. Our firm’s lawyers will know farming because we come from farms and rural backgrounds. We will share the values of farmers and those in the industry. We will have a deep passion for agriculture. We believe that those people focused on feeding a growing world deserve lawyers that understand what they do.
By Todd Janzen
Please check out my new website, www.aglaw.us.
