Plowing a niche

Hiking boots aside, Kent Connor looks the part of a western rancher from central casting, black cowboy hat, denim and all. At age 66, Connor runs a small cow-calf operation with his wife near Corvallis, Mont., using teams of horses to do much of the labor. It is a lifestyle steeped in tradition.

"My wife's family and my family go back to about 1865," says Connor. "When I was 10, 11 years old I drove a team of horses and raked hay." When you watch him harness a team of his Belgian draft horses, each one weighing about 1,500 to 2,200s pounds, in his small red barn it feels like it could still be 1865.

For the Connors and many like them in the West, the farm life will soon be a relic of memories and movies. This should come as news to no one since the West's prime farmland has been the sacrificial lamb to suburban expansion for decades now. As a profession, farming has never been easy, and thus never less attractive to younger generations than it is now in this age of convenience.

A recent study by the American Farmland Trust predicted that 11 percent of all prime ranchland in the Rocky Mountain West is threatened by conversion to residential development by 2020. The same organization released a report in 2002 showing that housing lots of 10 or more acres have accounted for 55 percent of the land developed since 1994.

The Connor's ranch lies in the heart of the Bitterroot Valley in Montana's Ravalli County. Here in the same small farming community of Corvallis, two unique operations buck the trend of going belly-up.

The Huls' Dairy, one of eight remaining dairies in the Bitterroot – a valley that was once home to 400 – has almost tripled the size of their operation in the last two years. And just down the road, Pat Burke with his company, Bitterroot Restoration Inc. has become one of the largest employers in the valley by raising site-adapted plants on just 17 acres.

During the 1990s, Ravalli County was one of the fastest growing counties in the United States. While growth rates have slowed slightly, local analysts have projected a population increase of 8,000 to 17,000 people and 3,800 to 8,600 new homes by 2010.

The sprawl has taken longer to reach Corvallis than other communities closer to Missoula, the nearest major city, 45 miles to the north. But in the last few years Corvallis and Stevensville have become the hot-spots for new housing development.

In 2003 the county's planning commission approved 25 subdivisions. In 2004, that number doubled and by February of this year, the commission had already approved 51 subdivisions.

Aside from the many market factors impacting all American farmers, the increase in property values and property taxes in the West have forced or encouraged the sale of much of the West's prime farmland for housing development. In the mid-1990s alone, 58,000 acres of farmland fell out of production in the Ravalli County.

"There's been a lot of people moving here on subdivided acres, anything from half an acre to five acres and a lot of that agricultural land is out of production," says Connor. Some people say ‘well the ranchers shouldn't sell,' but the smaller guys like us, we're in a way forced to sell if we want to maintain our way of life and not fold everything up."

When Connor and his wife Mary Lou staked their claim in the Bitterroot Valley in1973, Connor bought 2,200 acres of range and 135 head of cattle. Over the last three decades, their operation has decreased to only 220 acres with only 40 head of cattle.

For the Connors, it has been a gradual decline that began in 1996 when they shut down their 20-year-old dairy operation. "We got out of the dairy business because we didn't have any of our sons to come in and go with us," says Connor, not unsympathetic to his sons' career choices.

"It's quite labor intensive." Connor says. "You spend a lot of hours in the milk barn." The three Connor boys are all currently on the west coast with careers in investment banking, telecommunications and law.

The Connors' property has sweeping views across the valley to the rugged peaks of the Bitterroot Range that would fetch it a handsome price in today's market. Their love of the lifestyle and working with the animals has kept them from selling the whole farm, but they've had to get creative to stay afloat.

After closing their dairy, the Connors started Pioneer Carriage Service, capitalizing on the horsepower and popular appeal of their beautiful Belgians. From May to September, they spend at least one day a week giving wagon rides for weddings, fairs, and other events.

Still they've had to shave slices of acreage off the ranch to stay in business. In the past three years, they have sold a total of 30 acres to two different parties looking to build private homes, and they have an offer on another 50 acres. "When that one sells it will get the ball rolling," says Connor, alluding to the inevitable sale of the remainder of their pasture and cropland.

"We've put anything that we've ever made on the ranch back into the land," says Connor. "We don't have a lot of investments and things like that, so selling part of the land is our retirement."

While this scenario has been played out many times throughout the valley, one family farm is not only surviving, but thriving. There is nothing old-fashioned about the barn at the Huls Dairy a few miles to the northwest of the Connor Ranch.

The new steel and plastic barn at the Huls Dairy sits on 630 acres overlooking the Bitterroot River.

The massive green-and-white structure covers a little over one acre and houses 350 cows. Its steel frame is covered with a polymer-coated nylon fabric that is essentially an extremely durable tarp.

Inside the milking room cows are herded by mechanical fences onto a 24-stall carousel. At each stall is a "cow-side computer" and a milking machine which is attached to the teats by an operator. The computer identifies each cow by radio collar and then measures the volume, flow rate, and electrical conductivity of the milk. All of this data is fed to a computer and compiled into a relatively sophisticated report after each milking.

The barn is the hub of Huls Dairy Inc., a 630-acre farm is run by the four Huls brothers – Dan, Tim, Bruce and Jeff – and their wives. Two years ago, they finished construction on the new barn and milking system that increased their capacity from 120 Holstein dairy cows to 350.

In 1951, the brothers' father and grandfather started the first Grade A dairy in the Bitterroot. When that facility reached its 50th anniversary four years ago it needed an impractical amount of repair and remodeling. The family faced a tough decision – either get a modern facility or get out of the business.

"It was a big step for us," says Dan Huls. "It took hours and hours of prayer and seeking guidance, but every one of us loves this place and the Bitterroot Valley and the view and we couldn't imagine abandoning that. If we had exited the industry, the land would definitely have been developed."

And it was the high property values in this case that actually enabled the brothers to continue the family tradition. Ownership of the 630 acres used by Huls Dairy Inc. is divided between the brothers who then lease the land to the family corporation. High property values and the sheer volume of land the brothers hold gave them the equity needed to invest in the new facility.

But if the new facility is to stay productive throughout its 50-years life expectancy, the Huls Dairy Inc. will need the help of the next generation. That is another area in which the Huls family is defying the odds.

"One of the most valuable exports in this valley is our young people," says Dan Huls.

However, Dan's own son, Brody, 24, is now a full-time employee of the farm, and Bruce and Tim each have two children planning to return after finishing school or as a second career. Tim and Trudy's oldest son is quitting his job as a pilot to come work for the family business partly because he and his wife are expecting a child.

"He gave us a real nice compliment," says Trudy. "He said he wanted his kids to grow up the way he did. He wants them to be able to go play in the creek, shoot gophers and ride their motorbikes like he did."

Dan agrees that the beauty of land has made returning to the Bitterroot an attractive prospect for the kids, but also the cooperation of the family. "Part of it is the lifestyle we've been able to enjoy," says Dan. "The kids really have an appreciation for the place. And the work has always been divided between all of us so nobody has been strapped with everything."

It's a cold March day in Corvallis and the wind sounds like rain on the rows of visqueen greenhouse roofs. Inside these long, squat structures it's warm enough for a T-shirt and sandals. Among an expanse of steel tables and pallets of yellow plastic growing tubes, employees of Bitterroot Restoration Inc. plant grasses native to the Great Plains and California oak trees.

"Obviously it's a lot different than traditional agriculture," says Pat Burke of his company, Bitterroot Restoration Inc. The company was established in 1986 as a comprehensive ecological restoration service. In addition to growing site-adapted plants the company does assessment, planning, implementation, and long-term monitoring.

Many farmers in the Bitterroot, including Kent Connor and the Huls, occasionally rent ground for hay or grazing but would think twice about trying to farm less than 20 acres. This year at its 17-acre nursery BRI will grow approximately 1.2 million plants from 120 different species. The plants are adapted for specific locations around the western United States and Canada.

"In some ways it provides a parallel to the kind of jobs in traditional agriculture," Burke says. "But it doesn't use nearly the amount of land. On a given piece of land you can produce a lot more plants and a lot more dollars than you can with traditional agriculture."

Though BRI has a several projects in the Bitterroot Valley, most of the plants are exported to national parks and other public lands. About a quarter of the company's business comes from federally mandated mine reclamation work for private companies.

Between 35 and 40 Bitterroot residents work for Burke in this enterprise. The work itself is a far cry from the ranch labor of folks like Kent Connor. Perhaps this has helped Burke attract younger generations in the environmental community to work in this rural setting.

"There's a significant number of people who we hired right out of the University of Montana and other schools around the West," says Burke.

But BRI and Huls Dairy Inc. are both proving that, if agricultural production is going to continue to be a vital part of the Bitterroot Valley, it's going to look a lot different than in generations past.

Competing with global markets and with the inflow of urban settlers will likely require creative tactics, whether it is simply family cooperation and modernization or an altogether different model that can do more with less.