Farm fans hop on bus
Ranchers share love of land with ERC tour riders
By MATT FURBER
Express Staff Writer
Quarter horse breeder Katie Breckenridge explains the delicate task of artificial insemination in a breeding stall at the B bar B Ranch in Picabo. Photo by Willy Cook
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Although farmers make up a very small portion of the U.S. population today, most people can boast some connection to a farm in their family history.
In the case of Katie Breckenridge and Rob Struthers, who own the B bar B Ranch south of Picabo, tapping into those roots and reaching out to the non-farming community is an essen-tial ingredient in the future success of farming and in the goal of producing fine foods.
?Rob and I combined forces,? Breckenridge said, speaking during the ninth annual Farm Day outing hosted by the Environmental Re-source Center in Ketchum. ?The real-ity of agriculture today is you have to find a niche.?
Breckenridge and Struthers? niches are organic sheep, beef and hay and a substantial investment in quarter horse breeding.
?His grandfather built the rail-roads, exchanging land for labor,? Breckenridge said, speaking of Struthers. The sheep the pair breeds come from a lineage in Brecken-ridge?s family that grazed from Twin Falls to Stanley and back for many years. Their ranching operation spans 10,000 acres of private land and 10,000 acres of public land.
As Breckenridge and Struthers spoke to visitors, a herd of horses galloped across a freshly baled alfalfa field to the delight of the many view-ers.
The baling work was done Friday night, with fellow farmer Rob Peck and daughter Yhindi Struthers work-ing until 4 a.m. to take advantage of the night moisture, Peck said. Dew helps keep the protein rich leaves of the plant from falling loose, thereby maintaining the nutritional value of the crop, Peck added.
Working all night is not necessar-ily the best scenario for hosting two busloads of curious people who chose to spend their Saturday learning more about the agricultural reaches of the Bellevue Triangle.
?The reason we are doing this today is not because we need a party or more people,? Breckenridge said. ?But, because we feel strongly about a certain issue.?
That issue is reaching out to the consumers so people can see what makes farmers tick, Breckenridge said, also emphasizing the goal of many south county farmers to strive for quality.
?We are phenomenal stewards of the land but people do not understand us. We?re not redneck rapists of the land. We?re intelligent. We speak well, and we work like hell,? she said.
Although learning about artificial insemination in the quarter horse breeding program at the B bar B Ranch and lunching on organic beef hamburgers were two of the high-lights of the tour, the day began at the edge of a barley field on the Napuisu-naih Ranch owned by Larry Schoen.
Napuisunaih is a Shoshone word that means ?to dream,? and Schoen dreams of a time in the near future when the demand for organic food in the U.S. reaches a critical mass and ultimately becomes more affordable.
This year he was recognized as the Coors Environmental Farmer of the Year. He described his production of barley as a contractor for both Coors and Anheuser-Busch, which he grows with fourth-generation Wood River Valley farmer Rocky Serbine.
?What we have in Blaine County are some of the best farmers in the state of Idaho,? said Ron Thaemert, extension educator for the University of Idaho. ?To farm in Blaine County farmers have to be above average to succeed because of the price of fuel, fertilizer and the price of the ground,? Schoen said.
Despite high demand for local barley, the economic challenges and a relatively short growing season makes for a thin margin when it comes to making profits from farming, Serbine said.
Thaemert, Serbine and Schoen helped explain many of the technical aspects of farming in the southern part of the county. They discussed irrigation, drought, soil fertility and conservation, crop rotation and culti-vation and what it takes to succeed in the marketplace.
Education was the theme of the day.
?We want to give you all who live or visit here the opportunity to see what goes on in the south valley,? Schoen said. ?The most important relationship is between the producer and the consumer.?
He said the time would come when the consumer will opt for a blemished organic pepper over a per-fected conventional one because the consumer will demand organic and local produce.
?Don?t let up,? he said. ?Demand it.?
