By the time he was 10 years old, Taylor Smith was already recognized by his community as a promising young farmer. He’d started to build his cow herd. He was handy with equipment. His work ethic was unmatched by anyone else at his elementary school. But Taylor wasn’t interested in the recognition. He just wanted to be on the farm.
In fact, during his second grade year, Kayla Smith's typically quiet and obedient son started giving her trouble about being stuck in school during the day while his dad was out in the field doing the spring work without him. Attending school each day was a battle for Taylor and Kayla, but Taylor had enough smarts to figure out how to win the war once he got to high school.
His cultivating years
Growing up on a family farm, a cow-calf and feedlot operation north of Idaho Falls, had certainly taught Taylor hard work and the joy of reaping what you sow. But many farm kids find outlets such as sports a great way to take a break from farm life.
Early in his life, Taylor prioritized his time. By the time he was a sophomore, he decided that baseball and basketball were just taking too much time away from the farm. Quitting sports wasn’t an easy decision; his dad, Mike, was the assistant basketball coach at the high school.
But Taylor had made up his mind to be a farmer. As a junior, he signed a loan to buy a used 9600 John Deere combine and started custom harvesting, which quickly led to renting a 150-acre farm 2 miles down the road. That agreement had him starting his own operating loan, which he calls a big toilet bowl.
“That's where you're just swimming, trying to stay on the outside,” he laughs.
Pictured from left to right are: Mike Smith, Kayla Smith, Kylee Smith and Taylor Smith. Taylor and his family are at the Eastern Idaho Agriculture Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Courtesy image.
The high school principal and teachers were now becoming more mindful of how Taylor was spending his time. One day, the teacher in charge of the school's work release program called Mike, stating he needed to verify that Taylor was actually leaving school at 11 a.m. and heading straight to work. By this point, the battles about school with Kayla were over. Now it was the school administrators who wanted him in class.
Mike invited the work release teacher out to the farm. “I said, ‘You’re welcome to come out and go over pay stubs, see what he's doing, whatever you'd like to do,’” replied Mike, adding, “We’d be glad to have you come and be on the farm for a day,” appreciative of the teacher’s concern.
It wasn’t long before Taylor was purchasing his own equipment and installing center pivots wherever he could. Today, he farms independently from his parents as Taylor Smith Farms LLC.
Mike says Taylor has just always loved agriculture. But success takes more than just loving something; it requires a learning attitude.
Mike counseled all his children from a young age that if they always asked questions of successful people and became great listeners, they would gain a lot of knowledge.
Taylor has implemented that advice throughout his life. With another piece of advice from Dad: You reap what you sow.
Buying his first used combine as a junior in high school and taking out his first operating loan as a senior launched Taylor’s farming career and singled him out as a motivated young farmer. Courtesy image.Lessons learned
No matter how good a farmer you are, it’s hard to make a living on 150 acres, and Taylor knew it. He accepted almost any offer to rent a field or custom farm for anyone. And those offers kept coming in.
“People were excited to see a younger farmer getting into the game,” he says.
But 50 acres here and there might still not pay all the bills, so Taylor started reaching out to landlords in his area, asking for the opportunity to rent their farms. Not everyone said yes.
“I had to put myself in a lot of uncomfortable spots, and I had a lot of uncomfortable conversations,” he admits. “I’ve had doors slammed in my face, been hung up on. But pretty soon, they saw me and what I was trying to do and started reaching back out to me.”
Taylor’s farming operation continued to grow, and his reputation for being a humble man of his word outpaced his acreage. There’s a reason people call Taylor and offer their ground to him. He’s worked for it. Taylor says he was raised with the mantra that keeping your word means everything.
“If you contract hay today at 100 dollars and it went to 200 dollars, even if it wasn't in writing, you still honor that 100-dollar contract,” Taylor states. “There's too many people that are just looking to chase the next dollar and not necessarily doing what's morally or ethically right. I guess my name's worth more than the extra 20 dollars a ton, you could say.”
Today, Taylor manages roughly 5,000 acres with a cow herd to boot. That’s an impressive number for a farmer of any age, but especially for one just 36 years old.
Taylor Smith Farms LLC operates five balers throughout the haying and straw season. When she’s needed, Kylee isn’t afraid to hop in one and put in some harvest time. Courtesy image.
Farming with the family
Building a farm from scratch takes more than hard work and reputation; it requires sacrifice, something Taylor and his wife, Kylee, know well.
“I’ve had people say to me, ‘It must be nice having what you have,’” says Taylor. “They don’t see all the blood, sweat and tears and missed birthday parties and not getting to put my kids in bed, all that kind of stuff. They just see the outside picture, I guess, the photograph on the front of the newspaper, versus reading the full article.”
Kylee says the early years of their marriage were tough. Taylor was hustling to make the farm work and grow. When she wanted to spend time with him, she packed up the kids and rode in the tractor with him. Back then, he got home after 9 p.m. and was up first thing. Looking back now, those are cherished memories. Their three daughters, Tayzlee, 13, Kimber, 9, and Kinley, 7, no longer all fit inside the combine. In fact, the oldest is now running her own baler: one of the five the family owns.
Kylee stays busy in the farm office, handling the books, the payroll and all the paperwork that comes with H2-A employees. She also helps out in a baler when she’s needed. She’s always been a full-time mom and, during harvest, a full-time cook for more than 15 employees.
Thirteen-year-old Tayzlee operates her own baler during the summer and even misses some school to help put up straw. Courtesy image.
Taylor’s attention to detail is something both Kylee and Taylor’s parents have noticed over the years.
“I’m not exaggerating,” smiles Kylee, “he goes around to pretty much every single field every day, especially when there is water going.”
From the beginning, every night after dinner, Kylee and the girls loaded up in the truck and went with Dad to check the fields. Today, it’s become one of the family’s favorite pastimes. Kylee loves going in the side-by-side with Taylor while the girls ride their dirt bikes alongside.
The girls have been doing it long enough that they now have their own opinions about how things are done. According to Kylee, Tayzlee doesn’t hesitate to mention to her dad that a certain field needs to be swathed, sprayed or harvested. She’s being trained the same way Taylor was.
Taylor’s hard work hasn’t just been noticed by the neighborhood. In March 2026, Taylor was awarded the Ed Duren Memorial Young Producer Award by the Eastern Idaho Agriculture Hall of Fame. In 2024, he was named runner-up in the Anheuser-Busch Grower’s Grain Quality Producer Award.
Recognition comes and goes, says Taylor. He just wants to farm. Oh, and he tells his mom she can’t build a new house because he’s not going to lose any more good farm ground to houses!
