I manage the organic grass finished beef operation for B Bar Ranch north of Big Timber. I grew up in the restaurant industry and always felt called to bettering the food system.

My journey in agriculture over the last ten years has changed a great deal of my pervious beliefs. Where I used to see weed infestations, I now see opportunities to fix a problem with management or soil. Our management decisions are the cause of many of our problems and if we can just be more observant and thoughtful we can accomplish anything. I think that fear of taking chances is one of the biggest challenges in agriculture today.

The current state of agriculture relies too much on treating our animals and food as commodities. Subsidies are going to the wrong groups (junk food producers) and the folks that are raising responsible, regenerative and healthy food are struggling to compete against these megacorporations. I do see things moving in the right direction and hope that the needle continues moving towards rewarding growers of healthy food rather than growers of cheap food.

In the past ten years I have learned a great deal about regenerative agriculture. Our management intensive grazing, pasture stitching, slaughter waste compost and other regenerative practices have increased our carrying capacity and improved our beef quality. We’ve seen more wildlife on the ranch in decades and also noticed that our cattle gain better when we focus on regeneration of the land. We’ve also pioneered some practices such as our pasture stitching seed mixes and slaughter waste composting that have increased plant diversity which drives an increase in soil health and forage production.

Ranchers should be leading their communities fighting for healthy and equitable food for everyone in their community. They also need to work together with others in their community to build strong relationships and resilience in the food system.

I believe that in Montana ranchers are looked upon fairly favorably by the general community. We need to foster this relationship and build on it. We also need to be humble and willing to listen to other viewpoints even if they run counter to our beliefs. Finding the radical center is a great way to advance public understanding of our mission of regeneration.

I am currently starting in on a couple research projects to track the native soil biology’s reaction to the application of our slaughter waste compost and how certain organic inputs might increase the value of stockpiled forage for our winter grazing. The ranch is also participating in a study at Montana State University studying how the human body metabolizes organic/grass finished beef compares to conventional feedlot beef specifically looking at nutritional density differences. Nutrient density will likely be the way people value their food once we are able to better measure it.