A lot of times, farming is something you are born into. In fact, a study by the USDA’s Economic Research Service from 2016 says more than one-third of US farmland is inherited or gifted by a family member and on top of that, another 16 percent is purchased from family.

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So, what happens if you want to farm but your family doesn’t have land to give you? For one Iowan, this is where he got creative.

Grant Hilbert always knew he wanted to be a farmer. While Hilbert’s grandparents and uncles farm by Algona, his parents moved away from the farm to Ankeny where they both work in the agriculture sector, says an article in the Gazette.

Turns out, that in order to achieve the goal of being a land owner here in Iowa, you need to just play video games.

For the last six years, Hilbert has been making YouTube videos of him playing the Farming Simulator which helped him buy 250 acres in Poweshiek and Mahaska counties where he grows corn and soybeans.

All this work has helped him grow his YouTube channel The Squad more than 1.3 million people. Even now that he has his own farm, he is still posting several Farming Simulator videos a week.

Hilbert earned his agricultural business and economics degree from Iowa State University in 2020. While there, he filmed, edited, and posted a video every day he was in class.

During his junior year of college, Herbert started scouting land brokerage websites to find farmland in Iowa so that when he graduated, he was able to buy land right away.

He told the Gazette that around 60 percent of the down payment was from money made from YouTube, and the other 40 percent was from investments.

And don't worry, Hilbert does post his real-life farming videos on a separate channel as well.

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