Landus is in president and CEO Matt Carstens’ blood as his family members sat on the board of directors of one of the farm cooperatives that merged to form Landus. Today, he’s known as a thoughtful, progressive leader and a strong advocate for rural communities, farming’s role in sustainability and the importance of the American farmer. Carstens lives in Grimes, Iowa, with his wife, Shanda, and he enjoys spending time with her and their three grown children, especially at Iowa State sporting events.
What gets you up in the morning, and what keeps you up at night?
What gets me up in the morning is our farmers and employees with our mission of leading them into the future. What keeps me up at night is thinking about how we’re going to find the talent we need to serve farmers into the future. Although we’re in a major metropolitan area, it’s still tough. There is a lot of competition for talent. We must continue to find ways to get that talent here. We must be at our best every day.
Does what Landus is doing scare traditional ag retail?
Our mission is to do what’s right for the farmer. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. It’s not a popularity contest. There are other ways you can do this. You can be popular within the cooperative system. You can be popular within the manufacturing world, and that’s fine. But Landus is very clear that it’s about farmers, and it’s about us as a team and our rural communities, and that’s it. So, whatever the rest does is fine. But I will say, farmers always get it right.
How difficult has this reimagination journey been?
Innovating is hard. Not everybody appreciates what we’re doing. The industry isn’t overly enamored with us. We’re going to break some glass, we’re going to try some things that are different, and we’re not going to worry about the outside noise. It’s a relationship between us and our farmers. If we get that right, plenty of people will want to come along for that ride. It takes talented people that have a lot of guts, grit and passion for what we’re doing and being able to block out the noise and just go.
What’s your opinion on the narrative that the rural way of life in America is under attack?
Do I think rural life has its challenges? For sure—just like everything else in life. Some of those challenges rest in our hands to help make sure we’re educating, to make sure we’re supporting rural. How do we help bring efforts back—whether it’s financial or resources that go beyond financial? I think there’s still more that we can do.
