Grow Getters

How a Missouri Rancher and Military Veteran Is Bridging Gaps for Vets and Ag Producers

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 19:55:40 GMT

Patrick Montgomery says he “likes a fight,” an attitude that served him well during his years serving on combat missions in the U.S. military. It’s also a pretty handy frame of mind for a rancher in today’s challenging ag economy, especially someone leading two other related businesses. In 2016, Patrick started K.C. Cattle Company, a direct-to-consumer beef operation selling what he produces on his 420-acre ranch, where he has roughly 200 pure-bred, wagyu cow-calf pairs.

The business struggled along until, in 2019, Food & Wine magazine declared his gourmet hot dogs the best in the world. “We were down to the last three thousand dollars we had to our name the week before that happened,” Patrick recalls on the latest episode of Farm Journal’s Grow Getters podcast. “That’s what put us on the map. We went from shipping 20 orders a week to having 12,000 roll in overnight.”

During the pandemic in 2020, when grocery store shelves couldn’t offer shoppers a steady supply of protein, K.C. Cattle Company flourished. However, a couple of years later, with input costs skyrocketing, he found himself in a new battle, one he wasn’t sure he could win. “Like many on the beef cattle side, we were taking it on the chin,” he says. “I figured I could either quit and shut down K.C. Cattle Company or I could go fight. And that’s where the idea for Valor Provisions came from. It was really out of desperation.”

Structured like a co-operative, Valor Provisions, founded in November 2024, brings together multiple protein producers in a single marketplace, to which consumers pay a one-time, lifetime “steakholder” fee for membership. The producers participating in Valor Provisions are all military veterans. The website explains that the mission is “to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with America’s hardworking farmers and veterans, providing a marketplace that honors their dedication and the quality of their work.”

Patrick sees a parallel between military service and ag production — with one percent of the population providing a vital service for the other ninety-nine. “And there’s such a disconnect between them,” he says. Through his companies, he wants to bridge the gap between producers and consumers and to bridge the gap for returning veterans between their military experience and everyday life.

“What I tell vets is that you can either choose to use the situation for good or bad,” he says. “I did both, but eventually it turned into this, which I hope is something that gives people hope past service.”

Watch the full Grow Getters interview

Visit the K.C. Cattle Company website: https://kccattlecompany.com

Visit the Valor Provisions website: https://valorprovisions.us

From Guiding Hunters to Brewing Beer, These North Dakota Ranchers Run a Diversified Operation

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 20:05:16 GMT

After attending college, brothers Jeremy, Jayce and Jay Doan made their way back to the family ranch in central North Dakota. Black Leg Ranch is a big spread, nearly 20,000 acres, but supporting multiple families demanded additional revenue streams.

When Jeremy returned to work on the ranch, he started Rolling Plains Adventures, which offers hunting packages that have won the North Dakota Governor’s Travel and Tourism Award. Guests are picked up at the Bismarck airport, fed, lodged and guided throughout the ranch, where wildlife is plentiful.

“It was a struggle at first,” Jeremy says on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a podcast showcasing ag producers who have created side businesses. “People told me it was a dumb idea. But I’ve always loved hunting and the outdoors, and I felt like I was living a dream. I just had to make that dream a reality. It has had its hiccups, but it’s been a very worthwhile business.”

The outfitting operation has expanded to include guided ranch tours, collectively drawing visitors from all 50 states and 65 countries. The brothers have also created a direct-to-consumer business, selling cuts of their grass-fed and grass-finished beef and bison meat.

And then there’s the Copper Jewel Barn, a 13,000-square-foot event space where they regularly host weddings and corporate functions. Having transformed old buildings on the property into handsome lodges, they can host groups of up to 25 people for overnight stays on the ranch. “It’s a neat space with a lot of character,” Jay says. “We’re proud of it.”

To echo the classic infomercial mantra — but wait, there’s more. They’ve also opened Black Leg Brewery, which produces a variety of craft brews that are distributed throughout the state and in parts of Minnesota. The brewery has recently partnered with North Dakota State University to offer two additional brands, Bison Light and Bison Bock. “It fits really well into our operation,” Jays says, “and it tastes good.”

As far as advice to other ag producers considering a side business, Jay says, “Everybody has some competitive advantage. You just have to find it.” He adds that one of their ranch’s advantage is its location — a 20-minute drive to the airport. “That’s huge for tourism, and that has really helped us,” he says. The brothers agree that part of their success is due to “thinking outside the fence.”

“People think we’re nuts sometimes,” Jay says. “Who has a brewery on a ranch?”

Watch the full Grow Getters interview

Visit the Black Leg Ranch website: https://www.blacklegranch.com/

Operational Diversity Drives Success for a Colorado Ranch Family

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 22:44:20 GMT

As a kid, Dave Gottenborg loved to read Western novels. He dreamed of running a ranch. As a teenager, while working a summer job on horseback in Estes Park, Colorado, he met his wife, Jean, who shared his dream of ranching. In 2012, more than thirty years later, their dream finally came true when they purchased Eagle Rock Ranch, located 9,000 feet above sea level near the town of Jefferson, Colorado.

“We got here a little bit late, but we’re making the most of it,” Gottenborg tells Davis Michaelsen on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a Farm Journal podcast showcasing how ag producers are creating new businesses to help support their operations.
Having built a very successful career in law and in the energy sector, Gottenborg had no intention of playing cowboy on a hobby ranch. He approached stewardship of the 2,800-acre property — which dates back more than 150 years as a cattle and hay operation — with a strong commitment to making it a successful business. His daughter, Erin Michalski, her husband, Matt, and their three children, joined Dave and Jean in the enterprise.

He quickly learned that financial success required diversification. “It became apparent to me early on that farmers and ranchers need other sources of income to survive,” he explains on the podcast. “We need to look at our attributes and how we can monetize them to stay on the land.” They opened a store in nearby Fairplay, through which they sell their beef and other merchandise. They also set up an online direct-to-consumer business, which has found customers in all 50 states. Erin now offers classes to other cattle producers on setting up their own e-commerce businesses.

When customers started asking about ranch visits, the Gottenborgs added an agritourism business to their operation. Ranch tours, wildlife viewing, hunting and fishing now play important roles at Eagle Rock Ranch.

Their main focus, however, remains on growing their timothy-grass hay, which was voted Best in Show at this year’s Colorado State Fair, and on tending their herd of roughly 100 cow-calf pairs of pure-breed Black Angus cattle. In 2023, Dave was named Commercial Producer of the Year by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association.

As for how to start a new business, Gottenborg offers this advice: “Don’t be intimidated. We’ve learned there are a thousand ways of doing anything and none of them are the correct way. People say, ‘you think outside the box,’ but I don’t even know where the box is. We just try to figure out what’s best for us in this location with the resources we have.”

Watch the full interview on Grow Getters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E45Hbl_dqk

Visit the Eagle Rock Ranch website: https://www.eaglerockbeef.com/

Creating A You-Pick Pumpkin Patch In Central Texas Proves Challenging But Rewarding For One Farm Family

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 14:16:27 GMT

For fourth-generation Maryland farmer Taylor Huffman, creating agritourism events to supplement ag income is a way of life. Her parents started diversifying their hay operation 25 years ago with a corn maze and, eventually, a u-pick pumpkin patch that featured a cannon for “pumpkin chunkin’.

When her father passed away in 2013, Taylor and her husband bought the property, continuing to farm as well as host seasonal events, which grew in popularity and complexity. At the height of the pandemic, their fall festival drew 30,000 visitors. Why, then, did the Huffmans decide to move 1,400 miles away to West, Texas, and start over?

“The main reason we came to Texas is the lack of regulation and the freedom to be creative and come up with businesses,” Taylor tells Davis Michaelsen on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a podcast that showcases how farmers are diversifying their operations. “We sold it all and moved here and left behind a lot of opportunity, but Covid made us realize we want to be in place of freedom and opportunity.”

The move required at least 10 long trips, some of which included two trucks pulling trailers. But hauling all of their equipment and belongings halfway across the country was a breeze compared to transporting the farm’s agritourism business model.

“Growing up in Maryland, there were orchards and u-pick strawberries and blueberries and on-farm creameries and just so many opportunities for the public to go out to the farm,” Taylor says. “And that is seriously lacking here in Central Texas. And so we decided that’s what we’re going to try to offer.”

They established Western Belle Family Farm just north of Waco and started growing specialty crops, including sunflowers, strawberries and, of course, pumpkins. If state regulations in their new home were more forgiving, the climate most certainly wasn’t. They dealt with searing heat and record-breaking drought. The first pumpkin crop died from lack of water. Fire ants took the next one.

“Let’s be honest growing pumpkins in central Texas is really hard,” Taylor says on the podcast. But a mix of prayer and perseverance paid off, and this year the Huffmans hosted an Easter festival, a strawberry u-pick event, a sunflower festival and, starting September 21, a pumpkin festival. After surviving a big move and even bigger agronomic challenges, the family feels that they’re right where they belong.

“I would have never thought something like this could work out, but we’ve had an incredible first two years,” Taylor says. “We’re really trying hard to create that actual u-pick experience and I think we might just do it.”

Watch the full Grow Getters interview

Visit the Western Belle Family Farm website: https://westernbellefarm.com/

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Nebraska Cattle Rancher Natalie Kovarik Is Bridging the Rural-Urban Divide as a Social Media Influencer

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 16:56:22 GMT

When Natalie Kovarik was growing up on the family ranch in Montana, she had no intention of staying in the ag world. She went off to college, earned a degree in pharmacy and took a job in a city. While back home at the ranch for a short visit, however, she met her soon-to-be husband and eventually ended up raising a family on a cattle ranch in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. She now finds herself not only back in the ag world but a social media ambassador for it.

On the latest episode of Grow Getters , a new Farm Journal podcast that celebrates America’s most inventive ‘agri-preneurs,’ Kovarik talks about how she has become a powerful voice in spreading the word about how food is grown and livestock is raised. Her goal is to bridge the widening gap between rural and urban life and to foster a clearer understanding between those worlds.

“I think my biggest thing is just reminding people that there is a person or a face and a family behind food,” Kovarik tells Grow Getters host Davis Michaelsen. “I think that all the fear and misinformation and consumer confusion is rooted around that missing piece — that there is a person behind the food. I think trust would be increased substantially if they could connect their food with a person.”

By spreading this message effectively, Kovarik has amassed a social media audience numbering well into six figures. She also co-hosts a podcast called Discover Ag with dairy farmer Tara Vander Dussen, on which the pair covers what’s new in the world of food. But achieving such success didn’t come without some false starts and deft pivots.

“I think there’s beauty in testing different paths and seeing what fits for you,” she says. “If you look back at my journey, I’ve always been one to kind of go down a path and then say, ‘Is this working or is it not?’ And then kind of back scale or continue forward. And I always try and give that advice to youth because sometimes that’s not the advice they get.”

Listen to the full interview on the Grow Getters podcast.

Find out more about Natalie Kovarik by visiting https://nataliekovarik.com

View More Episodes of Grow Getters
View Natalie’s Podcast, Discover Ag

How Eighth-Generation Ohio Farmer Zoe Kent Built a Vast Social Media Following With Her Funny Farm-Life Videos

Fri, 21 Jun 2024 13:33:43 GMT

When Zoe Kent returned to the family farm in Crawford County, Ohio, after earning a degree in ag business, she and her dad, Mickey, made a plan. They formed an LLC, she would work for him for five years and then buy him out. But after just two years, Mickey’s health began to fail and she wound up running the entire operation. An eighth-generation farmer, Kent found herself, while still in her 20s, in charge of growing crops on land the family had been farming since 1820.

While making this transition, she also started making short, funny Snapchat videos of her life on the farm, mostly for city-dwelling friends from her college days at Ohio State. When she began posting her videos on TikTok, her Farm With Zoe began drawing quite a few followers, who now number more than 200,000 across multiple social media platforms.

“I’m just showing people what’s going on on the farm,” Kent tells Davis Michaelsen on the latest episode of Farm Journal’s new Grow Getters podcast . With so many followers, she’s become an influencer, though she says she doesn’t especially like that tag. “I’m definitely first and foremost a farmer,” she says. “And [social media] has blossomed into a whole other side gig.”

Grow Getters is a podcast all about side gigs, specifically ones ag producers have created to help support their farming and ranching operations. Michaelsen posts a new episode every other Tuesday, using humor and his musical skills to complement the creativity and resourcefulness of his guests.

Watch the full episode of Zoe Kent’s interview on Grow Getters .

When Kent isn’t focused on growing corn and soybeans, she spends her time making videos “to show people what agriculture is like today. I’m trying to connect with the consumer and also with other farmers,” she says.

She’s particularly interested in connecting with other women in ag, but her closest connection is with her dad, who joins her for the final part of the podcast. Not only is his advice about farming invaluable, he’s also become a popular figure on Farm With Zoe. In the true spirit of Father’s Day, she says, “All of my best videos are the ones where Dad tags along in them.”

Read more about Zoe Kent here .

Watch more Grow Getters episodes here .