The Backstory
Three corn and soybean farmers from the upper Midwest looked at the status quo of commodity monocrop agriculture and asked a simple question: could we do this better if livestock and crops worked together again?
In February 2020, Zack Smith, Sheldon Stevermer, and Lance Petersen sketched out an idea — alternating strips of corn and annual pasture, with multiple species of livestock grazing between the rows, contained in a mobile barn they called the ClusterCluck 5000. By June, the concept was in the field. Stock Cropping was born.
Over the next four years, the system evolved from a hand-winched barn to an autonomous, solar-powered platform with GPS autosteer and iPhone control. Five prototypes. Cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and chickens. Four seasons of public field days. A feature in the hit documentary Food Inc 2.
The concept caught the attention of Precision Planting, who invited Stock Cropper to be vetted at their PTI Farm in Pontiac, Illinois. In its first year of testing in 2024, the Stock Cropper system set the all-time corn production record at the site — 434.9 bu/A. In 2025, it followed up with the second-highest yield and the highest farmer profitability of any comparable practice tested on their 500-acre research farm.
The concept works. The data proves it. But we also learned something important.
The Pivot
We started with a big vision — change the system, feed the world. But the deeper we got, the clearer it became: reforming industrial meat production wasn't something we could do from the outside. The system wasn't ready.
So we asked a different question: what if we gave people the tools to feed themselves first?
Protein Sovereignty
Growing your own protein for your family and friends isn't a fringe idea anymore — it's a movement. It's being fueled by the visible fragility of our food system, shifting expectations around how food should be raised, and a deeper pull toward the kind of authentic, hands-in-the-dirt experiences that build values and relationships from a time most of us only remember.
But for new entrants, the learning curve is steep and the pain points are real — from managing animals safely to dealing with predators, weather, and the daily logistics of keeping things moving and healthy.
That's where we come in. Stock Cropper is taking everything we've learned from five years of autonomously moving livestock through crop fields and distilling it down into smaller, smarter devices designed to remove the friction of raising protein in your backyard, on your acreage, or in an urban green space. It's a bottom-up approach — one that feeds families healthier protein and enriches souls in the process.
What We're Building
It starts with the ClusterCluck Drive — a solar-powered electric drive unit that eliminates the biggest pain point of mobile livestock pens: the strength and time it takes to move them. The Drive attaches to any mobile pen with rolling wheels under 600 lbs, enabling either manual or autonomous movement. It's a first-to-market solution that isn't limited to chickens — it can be adapted to all forms of livestock.
The Drive is then the engine for our full Protein Sovereignty starter pack: the ClusterCluck Pico. An autonomous backyard poultry barn with zero-entry choring and 3–5 days of onboard food and water, the Pico is built for families who want to take the first step toward producing their own protein while eliminating 95% of the pain points. Larger barn models will follow over the coming years, scaling the system from backyards to pastures.
