Food & Fiber: Keeping it Local

Nate and Tara Stireman are the stewards of Steep Mountain Farm in Wellsville, operating under a “Community Supported Agriculture” model. BRLC staff toured their farm in August to learn more about this unique model. Each year, customers purchase a “farm share” or a “herd share” or both, which provides Steep Mountain with the funding needed to buy seeds and feed and fund their operation. Customers can use their share as a credit on custom orders.

The Stiremans were not born or raised as farmers. They were urban homesteaders who decided to leave the city and purchase the land for Steep Mountain Farm in 2015. Together with their sheep, goats, turkeys, and chickens, Steep Mountain Farm helps support local families by providing “a full diet,” of meat, eggs, milk, yogurt, and veggies, with a young orchard providing fruit as well.

“We don’t really believe in owning land. If anything, it owns us,” said Nate when asked why he uses the word “steward” instead of “owner.” The Stiremans practice regenerative agriculture, which focuses on full ecosystem health, rather than monocrop and extractive farming. Tara explained, “We have a full cycle in place. The animals create the nutrients we use. The chickens cycle nutrients in the pastures, and we generate compost with the ungulates: sheep and goats.”

Before Steep Mountain, the property was used for cutting pasture grass. The Stiremans have had to build the farm they wanted, piece by piece. They have modified the ponds on the property to create wetlands, planted hedge rows, and built a corral and two high tunnels to extend their growing season. They have a mobile chicken coop which they rotate through the pastures in order to spread nutrients and give access to fresh pasture. They have largely funded their small operation through farm and off-farm income (such as working other jobs), and have utilized federal NRCS programs to fund many of the farm improvements, such as the EQIP and Conservation Stewardship Programs.

Tara said, “Federal assistance has been critical in our ability to operate as a small regenerative farm. The high tunnels are a good example. We would not be able to purchase those on our own. This assistance has allowed us to produce more local food, high in nutrients, for more than just ourselves. The majority of the food we grow and raise stays right here in Cache Valley, with some of it going as far as Salt Lake City. We hope to be a part of the food justice and resilience movement.”

From Nate: “We’re losing valuable farm land. It seems really important to me to figure out ways to protect small farms, because that is where a lot of the local food production happens. We want to focus on food resiliency and keeping things in the valley, which happens on a much smaller scale. We live in an agricultural community, we can produce a tremendous amount of food here and keep it in the valley and have more food security, if we invest in it.”

Tara added, “The valley is growing, we need more housing. In our experience, farmers want to be part of the solution. I think it is an opportunity to focus on food production and food security, and ask, ‘What are we doing with the land?’ instead of just doing what we’ve always done. I think there are a lot of creative ways we can grow in a really smart way.”

For others who might be interested in farming, the price of land is often an incredibly inhibiting factor. Gabe Murray, Executive Director of Bear River Land Conservancy, said, “If you’re not inheriting it from the generation before you, it’s almost impossible to start out on your own.” Conservation easements have a part to play in this by reducing the cost of the land while preserving the land’s function as a farm.

Preserving our sense of community and sense of place is more than just preserving open space. It is about what we do with that open space as well. As we look to the future, we can foresee farming becoming even more difficult and even less profitable for farmers than it is now.

While we strongly believe that small farms have an important role to play in our local communities, BRLC does not currently have the staff capacity to conserve many of these small farms. BRLC currently holds one easement on a small-scale agricultural farm in Southern Cache Valley, and we hope to have the funding and staff capacity to conserve more small agricultural farms in the future.