Ellen Yeatman

Ellen joined AFT in November 2020 as the first full-time staff ag economist after earning her M.S. in Ag Economics from the University of Wyoming. There are now four ag economists at AFT! Until 2024, Ellen led the development and expansion of AFT’s soil health practice partial budget analysis tool (the “Retrospective Soil Health Economic Calculator” (RSHEC)) and soil health economics case studies. Ellen and her team produced 15 case studies between 2022 and 2024 using the mentioned tool. In July 2024, Ellen and her team published the revamped Soil Health Case Study Toolkit on AFT’s Farmland Information Center, providing the public with all the resources they need to produce their own soil health economic case studies. Additionally, Ellen has co-lead the economic and social science data collection for AFT’s first-ever national CIG on-farm demonstration trials (2021-2025 Conquering Cover Crops Coast-to-Coast & 2024-2028 Breaking Down Barriers to Biochar), playing a lead role in building AFT’s capacity to lead trials on a national scale. Beginning in August 2024, Ellen joined AFT’s nascent social science research & impact evaluation team to once again lead some firsts for AFT! In her current position as Social Science Analyst, Ellen co-leads farmer surveys, focus groups, social science research, and project impact evaluation planning for a variety of national and regional projects. Ellen is based in Driggs, Idaho.