SHELBY – The Welker family has farmed land just outside of Shelby for over a century but never in there wildest dreams did they think that their Montana farm would become known around the world.
“You know I honestly don’t think I take it to heart as I should. It’s just kinda like, oh yeah, the farm’s been here 100 years — my family’s been here 100 years. It really doesn’t register to me, because I grew up in it,” Nick Welker said.
“When you’re a farm, every time you start adding years to your history,” Welker said. ” We gotta keep going, we can’t fail. We can’t fail at this point, it’s been in the family this long you can’t make a stupid mistake you’ve gotta keep going.”
Sometimes looking forward means looking back, “I was like you know we’re almost at our 100 year anniversary of our farm,” Welker said.
One hundred years of passing down knowledge that’s been three generations in the making have taken root in a digital age.
“I would love to make a video of our farm for our 100 year anniversary,” Welker said. “I didn’t know where it was going, but I just kept doing it and then in 2016, it was time to do another farming video.”
The video racking up over 1.5 million views and they’re YouTube subscriber numbers getting closer to 100,000 by the day.
“The question is where is this going? Is it going to stop here or is there going to be more? I mean we’ve actually had a couple pretty good sized producers come and look at our place for a potential show,” Welker said.
“In my mind, I just figure at some point in time we’re going to become old news. People are going to know Welker Farms — it’s just not going to be the hot thing and it’s going to die off.”
What started out as a way to have a little fun and maybe buy some new camera gear has in a sense turned into a second job.
“If I could go back to not having to worry about any of that stuff, and just focus on life and farming, that sounds kind of nice,” Welker concluded.
Since we last caught up with the Welker’s, their YouTube channel has jumped to over 30,000 subscribers, putting the Montana farm just shy of 112,000 subscribers on the popular video streaming service. Their Facebook page also has an impressive 10,000 likes.
The family has been featured on the National Geographic Channel, RFD TV, in Progressive Farming magazine, the Norwegian magazine Traktor and most recently on Farming Simulator 17.
The family farm also sells merchandise which you can check out by clicking here.
-Jason Laird of the Northern Ag Network reporting for MTN News
