Jeff Lorton

Founder, Plateau Ag Databank

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Jeff Lorton has spent more than a decade working to strengthen agriculture through emerging technology and new sources of economic value for growers.

The work began in 2013, while Jeff was serving as Yamhill County’s economic development coordinator.

 

Concerned by the rapid loss of diverse, locally rooted farm ownership, he began looking for ways new agricultural technologies could improve farm viability. In 2014, he founded the Precision Farming Expo to bring emerging agricultural technologists to Oregon and build relationships with growers who were early adopters of farm technology.

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The Precision Farming Expo evolved into the Oregon UAS FutureFarm initiative at the Pendleton UAS Test Range. Jeff moved to Pendleton to help develop practical agricultural uses for unmanned aircraft, working with Digital Harvest, Yamaha, Business Oregon, CBARC, USDA Agricultural Research Service, and other partners.

 

FutureFarm created agricultural technology demonstrations, training programs, research partnerships, and events such as the Ag Drone Rodeo.

Jeff later became ZEISS’s North American dealer for food and agricultural NIR systems. Over eight years, he pioneered the use of ZEISS near-infrared technology across a remarkable range of agricultural and food applications.

 

He introduced hundreds of growers, processors, researchers, and agricultural professionals to tools capable of instantly measuring protein, moisture, oil, sugar, starch, and other quality characteristics. His work ranged from animal feed and barge-loaded wheat to finished french fries and blueberry bruising. It gave Jeff firsthand experience with growers of different ages, crops, regions, and levels of technological adoption—and showed him how much valuable information modern agriculture produces every day.

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Through that work, Jeff recognized a fundamental imbalance: farmers continually generate valuable data through the ordinary work of producing a crop, yet seldom share in the financial value that information creates.

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Jeff left the ZEISS business in 2025 to establish Plateau Ag Databank.

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The Databank continues the mission that began with his economic-development work in 2013: helping stabilize agriculture and slow the loss of diverse, locally rooted farm ownership. Plateau Ag Databank gives growers a way to retain control of their agricultural information, combine it responsibly, and capture a second value from farming activities they are already performing.

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Jeff’s goal is to build an enduring, producer-centered institution that creates additional income for growers, supports multigenerational farming families, and strengthens agriculture throughout the Inland Northwest.

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