Although central Iowa, dotted with clusters of farmhouses, silos, and wind turbines, has a certain rural beauty, it has never been much of a tourist destination. Yet just south of Waterloo and west of Cedar Rapids off Route 21, a seemingly ordinary farmstead draws an almost constant stream of researchers, students, farmers, industry executives, and reporters, from as far away as Israel, Chile, and Estonia. They come—at times by the busload—to learn from a Harvard graduate who has become the closest thing the world of agriculture has to a rock star.

Clay Mitchell, 33, a lanky, blond, and blue-eyed farmer, has achieved his status because nearly all the machines on his family’s farm—from tractor to harvester—basically run on autopilot. He has been a pioneer in many important technologies that are now industry standards. Agriculture magazines set their editorial radar by what Mitchell tells them is new; academics and farm-equipment manufacturers want to collaborate with him. As Darrell Smith, an editor at Farm Journal magazine, puts it, “Clay is the most technologically advanced farmer that I know of—and I suspect anyone knows of.”

For Mitchell, a bachelor who farms corn and soybeans on 2,400 acres of his own and family property, the mission is to reinvent and revitalize the family farm by combining cutting-edge technology and environmentally friendly “no-till” farming, thereby saving both money and a way of life that always seems on the brink of obsolescence.

During the five-mile drive to the local co-op in Buckingham, Mitchell recites a monologue from the end of The Legend of 1900, a movie about a pianist who lives his entire life on a cruise ship and refused to disembark even as the ship was about to be scuttled. “I think a lot of farmers are like that,” muses the former Harvard Advocate publisher, who graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering in 1999.

Back on the farm, Mitchell demonstrates his innovation, using his cell phone to call the operators of the farm’s combine; a sensor on top of the tractor cab communicates moisture and yield measurements almost instantaneously to a computer inside. The numbers dance with every couple of rows harvested, hovering consistently above 200 bushels per acre. “That’s reeeally good!” says Mitchell.

The field is yielding 20 to 30 percent more corn than the county average, thanks in large part to Mitchell’s adoption of GPS and real-time-kinematic guidance technology on his machines. Auto-guidance allows him to plant, fertilize, and spray his crops to centimeter-level accuracy, minimizing waste and environmental impact.

No-till farming leaves the ground intact after harvest and before planting. It’s less labor-intensive than conventional farming and dramatically reduces erosion, but its use is limited in the United States because it usually lowers yields. But the technology on Mitchell’s farm enables him to maximize production by creating near-perfect conditions for seed germination.