Built for the farms
the big players ignore.
FarmTech Solutions is a precision-agriculture company based in North Central Montana. Five full-time people. Hardware, software, and AI we build ourselves. Serving working farms across the US and Canada with tools that were previously reserved for operations ten times their size.
The premise
Precision agriculture has existed for thirty years. The technology to apply fertilizer at per-acre variable rates, to spray only the weeds instead of the entire field, to track every animal and piece of equipment across a complex operation — none of it is new. It works. Large operations have been running it for decades.
The reason smaller and mid-size farms don't have it isn't capability. It's access. This technology was packaged for enterprise budgets — six-figure equipment programs, agronomist retainers, software contracts, and the dedicated IT staff to keep it all talking. Everyone else got the brochure and the suggestion to call back when the operation scaled up.
FarmTech Solutions was built to close that gap. Not by compromising on capability — by refusing to accept that the price and complexity of precision-ag tools had to stay where they were. FarmDefender™ puts AI machine vision on the implement — targeting weeds, mapping rocks — at a fraction of the cost of incumbents, on hardware anyone can service. SoilOptix brings professional soil mapping to operations that couldn't justify a full agronomist. FarmIQ™ puts the whole intelligence layer in reach of any farmer with a phone.
The thesis is simple: when the tools catch up to the farms that actually exist, agriculture changes. We're doing the catching up.
The founder
Doug Weist grew up on a family farm in North Central Montana. He still lives on it. That's not a brand narrative — it's the reason FarmTech's products are built the way they are. Doug farms the ground these tools run on. When FarmDefender™ deploys on a 120-foot boom, he's watched it go down the field.
He earned a B.S. in Plant Biotechnology from Montana State University in 2002. Spent years at WestBred in cereal plant breeding, then at CHS providing precision agriculture solutions to Montana farmers — close enough to the real problems, far enough from the tools solving them, to see the gap clearly.
In 2009 he spent a year in Ukraine doing international agricultural work. Came back to Montana and founded FarmTech — initially focused on precision-ag service and consulting, eventually on building the tools the market wasn't providing.
The products that exist today — FarmDefender™, FarmIQ™, SoilOptix, FarmLink, FarmTag — are the result of twenty-plus years of watching what farmers actually need and building it when nobody else would. Doug codes. Doug machines parts. Doug is in the field when installations happen. That's the company.
Outside of FarmTech: avid skier on-piste and backcountry, and a traveler who's done agricultural work on multiple continents.
Three pillars. One stack.
FarmTech Solutions builds around three pillars — plus the hardware that keeps them connected in the field. Built to work together, and to work independently when that's what makes sense:
- FarmIQ™ — the platform: Soil RX, Crop RX, satellite monitoring, Spray and Tell, drone mapping, field history
- FarmDefender™ — the eyes: see-and-spray weed targeting + depth-camera rock detection
- SoilOptix — the ground truth: high-density soil mapping + agronomist-built prescriptions
- FarmLink — the plumbing: Starlink + LTE + RTK base station coverage, bundled into FarmDefender™ kits
- FarmTag — equipment and asset tracking at $10/slot/year
Run one. Run all. They integrate by design, not by sales bundle.
The team
Five full-time people — engineers, scientists, photographers, machinists. Most based in Montana. All hands-on with customers. When you call FarmTech, you're talking to the people who built what you're running.
Originally from Germany, Cindi holds university degrees in photography and brings three decades of professional experience. Her work captures customer stories with precision and artistry — the photography behind FarmTech's field documentation is hers. She also runs bookkeeping and day-to-day operations. Outside work: endurance riding in the Mountain West and exceptional sourdough.
Bridger leads SoilOptix soil mapping in the field, manages drone operations, and supports FarmDefender™ hardware installs. His background spans environmental science, a carbon project, and Fish, Wildlife & Parks — problem-solving and attention to environmental detail in equal measure. The agronomic story behind every soil map comes through him. Outside work: fishing and camping.
Co-founder and the software heart of the company. Raised in Detroit, B.S. in computer science from Lewis University. Came to FarmTech with no farming background and built FarmIQ™ from scratch — then wrote the AI detection software FarmDefender™ runs in the field: the code deciding, frame by frame, what's a weed, what's a rock, and what gets sprayed. The youngest on the team and the one who pushes back on every architectural shortcut. A serious chess player pushing toward professional-level competition.
Versatile mechanical problem-solver. Machining-school grad, came to FarmTech from a weapons-manufacturing background — the precision-engineering mindset transfers directly to field hardware that has to hold up under Montana conditions. Key to R&D and the physical build side of every product. Certified horse shoer who helps with his family's outfitting business. Avid skier and outdoor enthusiast, often on the same mountains as Doug.
We sell direct. We install direct. We answer the phone.
No support ticket queue. The team above is who you work with — from the first call to the field install to the mid-season question at 7 AM. That's how we want to do it, and it's what makes the products better.