The Farmer With the Dell: Saline County, Missouri

John McChesney interviews farmer David Copeland John McChesney steps into a tractor

From Wall Street to rural America, technology has both increased our productivity and changed the way we conduct business. To stay afloat in today's competing global economy, corporations, small business owners and even farmers are facing the challenges associated with adapting their business operations to new technology.

NPR technology reporter John McChesney returns to his family roots in Saline County, Missouri, to look at the adaptation of technology in the agriculturally rich, central Missouri River Valley. McChesney reflects on the past 50 years in that region and remembers that in his childhood there was no electricity or running water. Now farmers use Global Positioning Satellites, computers to plant and harvest, and automated breading to raise hogs. Technology has been both a curse and a blessing to these farmers.

Listen to All Things Considered from Wednesday, September 27, as McChesney takes a closer look at how farmers are adjusting to the digital revolution.

The Changing Face of America is an 18-month-long NPR series that tells the stories of regular, everyday Americans and the issues they face at a time of rapid and dramatic change in the U.S. This special series can be heard on NPR's Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered and Morning Edition.

The Changing Face of America series is sponsored by The Pew Charitable Trusts.