Matt Laubach & Katie Elvehjem, El Farms
Katie grew up on a farm bottle-feeding orphan lambs. In 2012, she and Matt took it over from her parents, who had bought it from her grandparents, which makes them the third generation responsible for a hundred-year-old piece of ground outside Morris. Trouble was, they inherited its oldest problem, too. The soil here is vulnerable to wind and water, and a hard rain takes the topsoil down the hill.
In this episode of Local Heart, we spend a day with Matt and Katie and their kids on their changing farm. It started with one community meeting about regenerative agriculture, and now they’re selling the plow. They know now that the way it had always been done wasn’t the way they were going to do it.
How NBC Supports El Farms’ Growth
Changing the way you farm isn’t cheap. Or easy. Agriculture runs on a cyclical market, and the changes Matt and Katie are making are built for the long term. They needed a bank and a banker who were as open-minded as they were about where El Farms was headed. NBC took the time to understand their operation and then grew right along with them.
