Our story is not new, but we want you to know it and feel like you are a part of it! Because if you purchase from us or even believe in what we're doing or want to know more, you play a role.
The McIntyre family started farming this area back in 1910. The generations before us came here with the promise that if you helped with the canal and reservoir project, you could purchase land. The farm started out mostly with row crops and raising animals, including a small dairy and supplying local watermelons. Loren’s dad also started an alfalfa business which is still a part of our operation today. Fast forward to 2009, after returning from college, Ben and Brad were picking up rocks in fields and began to wonder why the rocks just seemed to keep coming up. This led them (and all of us!) down the road in many directions… to no-till, biology of the soil and eventually to Gabe Brown.
We realized that life below ground was just as essential as life above.
We started bringing more cows back on the land to help build soil and to utilize the refuse left through the no-tilling we had begun to do and believe in.
We wanted to build the land the way nature has done it instead of with artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Since that time, more cows are on the farm as well as pastured hogs and pastured chickens and turkeys, which follow in rotation behind the cattle.
Pastured laying hens are the perfect ‘sanitizer’ to clean up flies and live the way nature intended, free to graze on lush pasture and build our soil's health. We graze and grow cover crops, and never let our soil go "naked". We rotate crops including grasses, forages, brassicas, peppermint and more. We educate and also sell the cover crop seeds that we grow right here with our animals rotating through our fields.
Loren (father) and Ben and Brad (brothers) run the farm presently being the 3rd and 4th generations. Loren always loves a good, new idea (that we love to conjure up)! Brad has a great passion for soil health and loves teaching and helping people build it no matter where they are. Ben enjoys working with the beef and hogs and loves to organize and operate harvesting, grinding, and feeding efforts. We are at the point that we now grind all of our own feed on farm for all of our omnivore animals (birds and pigs). We grow many of the inputs that go into the rations right here as well.
Ben’s wife, Maria, has helped farm and manage the office since she joined the family and currently does the marketing, runs the Farm Store, and manages the turkey flock. She loves all aspects of the farm, growing up on one herself in the Magic Valley of Idaho, and involves her and Ben's 4 children in all the process. Jill (Brad's wife), also a native Idahoan, helps in the office and with weekend chores when she can. You may have met her at the Farm Store too. She is a super busy mom to 6! Kathy is our matriarch and cheerleader. She is the mother to NINE kids and grew up here in the Treasure Valley involved in her family's dairy and farm store and loves to help and meet you on Saturdays when she is working at our own Farm Store. Our children all work with us too. Our older kids have learned to do so much and are a valuable asset to our farm. Our younger kids are learning the ropes and help with all the chores they can appropriate to their age.
We also have a wonderful team of employees, who are our friends and family, that help run our operation each day. We are grateful for each one of them. They make it possible to produce all the proteins we sell on the farm, grow the seed and feed, irrigate the crops, harvest the animals, pack the orders, deliver the products, and give you a positive experience when you come out for a visit.
