Episode 135. Montana Farm’s Profound Changes

In this episode of Voices from the Field, we feature a conversation with Kurt Myllymaki, a Montana farmer and rancher who, with his family, raises crops and beef cattle on 10,000 acres of leased and deeded land in north central Montana near the town of Stanford.

He talks about the profound changes the operation is making, including diversifying cash crops raised on the farm and adding cover crops to reduce the use of summer fallow.

The interview was conducted in collaboration with Western SARE, and Stacie Cleary of Western SARE acted as this week’s guest host. Al Kurki, a sustainable agriculture specialist with NCAT’s ATTRA sustainable agriculture program, introduces the conversation with some background on the Myllymaki operation.

He also has an important invitation for listeners at the end of the conversation to the upcoming Soil Health Innovations Conference cooperatively presented by NCAT, SARE, Montana State University, and USDA Rural Development.

For more information on this topic, you can contact Al Kurki directly at akurki@ncat.org.

Please call ATTRA with any and all of your sustainable agriculture questions at 800-346-9140 or e-mail us at askanag@ncat.org. Our two dozen specialists can help you with a vast array of topics, everything from farm planning to pest management, from produce to livestock, and soils to aquaculture.

You can get in touch with NCAT/ATTRA specialists and find our other extensive, and free, sustainable-agriculture publications, webinars, videos, and other resources at NCAT/ATTRA’s website.

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