Bringing High Tech to Agriculture
By Jack Criss
Grenada native, Cade Moody, credits going to his uncle’s farm in Minter City as a young man for getting him excited about the field he would eventually go into. “And my own dad grew up on a farm, so agriculture was in the back of my mind the whole time,” he recalls. “As was the excitement of seeing all of the technology that was emerging in farming.”
Now living in Greenwood, Moody is currently an Ag Technology Specialist for IntelliFarm by Wade, Inc., – based in Greenwood and founded in 1909 – where he has served the Greenville, Indianola and Cleveland areas since starting the job in 2020. Moody actually interned for Wade in the summer of 2013 as an Integrated Solutions Intern, so he had knowledge of the major corporation prior to joining them full time.
Educated at Mississippi State University where he received his undergraduate degree in Agricultural Engineering Technology and Business and then Masters of Agribusiness Management, which had students work hand in hand with MSU’s M.B.A. department.
After his internships at Wade, Inc. and then with Nutrien Ag in the summer of 2014, Moody went on to work for Pilgrim’s (a poultry company he first encountered at an MSU career fair) in both Mayfield, Kentucky – as an Operations Management Trainee – and in Chattanooga, Tennessee as a Continuous Improvement Manager at a plant there.
“There was a lot of money to be had in the poultry business,” laughs Moody, “and I was a young man, so I entered the field. And, interestingly enough, when I ran the plant for Pilgrim’s in Chattanooga, it was smack dab in the middle of downtown. You’d see chickens loose and catch the smell,” he chuckled.
Moody realized he needed a career change, so initially he approached some catfish industry companies when he returned to the Delta for a job search until he got a phone call that Wade, Inc. was creating a new division focusing on advanced technologies for the John Deer equipment they sell.
“And my current boss, Johnny Marshall, was also over me during my earlier internship,” says Moody, “so it was a natural fit. He was going to be the director of this new division of tech and asked me to come aboard. I remember telling him ‘Absolutely!’”
Moody has, in effect, paved the path for the new division since coming aboard in 2020.
“We immediately started meeting with John Deere customers and other growers, informing them about all of the new technologies that were in place and coming down the pike,” says Moody. “Things like the software platform we call the Operations Center, a web based way to track your equipment, your data — basically a homeplace for your digital farming operations on both a website and an app.”
IntelliFarm essentially focuses on the latest technology in the cab of the equipment and the machines Wade, Inc. has, as well as its operations center, Moody explained in a nutshell. “It’s our division — Intellifarm is — but the technology is John Deere’s. We’re product experts on the technology and had to be trained. And continue to be trained, because the tech never stops growing and changing. Rapidly.”
One example of some of these changes, according to Moody, is the See and Spray sprayers that actually run through the fields with cameras attached which are able to spot a weed and then activate a nozzle to only spray that particular weed. “And it can do that while going fifteen miles an hour,” says Moody, “but it provides enormous savings to the farmers and to our customers. That’s only one example of what we have to offer now.”
Wade, Inc. in Greenwood is the oldest family-owned John Deere dealer in the country, says Moody. “That’s impressive in and of itself and it’s a great place to work.”
Moody has been married to Elizabeth, an Indinalola native, since February, 2018 and the couple have a son, Holt, who was born in March of this year. When not at his day job, Moody says he enjoys non-tech things like cruising in his Jeep, golfing and “messing around in the yard and garden…and a little grilling!” he laughs.