Ryan Schronk ’23, from Hillsboro, Texas, is continuing his family legacy as a sixth-generation Schronk farmer by taking over and leading the operations of the farm. Driven by a passion for agriculture, Ryan stands as a beacon of generational legacy and entrepreneurial spirit through his company, Planting Seeds Farm.

Ryan double-majored in Agricultural Economics and Plant and Environmental Soil Science and completed a minor in Agribusiness Entrepreneurship. After graduating earlier this spring, Ryan returned to his family business with the goal of increasing efficiency and expanding the reach of the farm by increasing the number of locations that his product is sent to. Many farms face struggles in working with limited acres of farming land. Ryan addresses this issue by diversifying and rotating what crops he grows.

Ryan is a unique entrepreneur of the 2.7 million principal farmers (the one person who makes most of the decisions for a farm and/or works on the farm the most) in the United States. Statistically, Ryan is one of only 20,121 principal farmers nationally to be under the age of 25.

To Ryan, farming is using the resources that God created to supply the world with products necessary to sustain life. Farms are the backbone of society, and in his words,

“Without farms, this world would not be able to properly function in the way that we know it today.”
Ryan Schronk ’23

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Ryan addressed this problem with his AGEC 425 project, Planting Seeds Farms, a multi-thousand-acre farm that consisted of corn and Hard Red winter wheat. Ryan currently grows corn, cotton, wheat and sunflowers. Maintaining a crop rotation allows Ryan to maximize yield while also spreading risk across multiple different crops. Ryan strives to stay up to date with the latest agricultural technologies to be as productive as possible in everything that he does.

Ryan was the 2023 AGEC 425 Rural Entrepreneur of the Year and received a scholarship from Decker Capital Partners. Ryan is appreciative of Decker Capital Partners and other donors and wants to thank them for providing scholarships to AGEC entrepreneurs and investing in the future of America’s entrepreneurial workforce.