Minot Daily News SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2020
Agriculture
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Focusing on nutrition Business model lets consumers share in farm production
By JILL SCHRAMM
Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com BOTTINEAU – Farming is truly a way of life for the Bartletts of Bottineau. When James Bartlett moved his family to 160 acres nestled along Lake Metigoshe in 2004, he put into practice a philosophy about food, lifestyle and business development that takes a more holistic approach to agriculture. Bartlett Farms is finding success in a farm-toconsumer model that focuses on nutrition-dense, chemicalfree animal products that haven’t gone through the usual supply-chain processing. Bartlett Farms sells customers shares in its cattle and poultry to obtain raw milk and pastured meats delivered to their doors. James and Lynn Bartlett operate the farm with son, Peter, and his wife, Nicole. Peter runs the raw micro-dairy while James runs the poultry, hog and beef operations. Three other sons have had a hand in the farm and continue to assist in nonproduction avenues. Jonathan, who started the poultry operation, is in seminary, studying to become a Reformed Presbyterian pastor. David operated a yard care company in the Lake Metigoshe area and now lives at Detroit Lakes, Minn., as does Andrew, who runs a film-making and idea company. James Bartlett was teaching engineering at North Dakota State University when he began thinking about entrepreneurship. As homeschooling parents, the Bartletts wanted to start a Christian-based, family operation that offered teaching
Photos by Jill Schramm/MDN
ABOVE: Bottled raw milk is among products available direct from the farm to consumers at Bartlett Farms, operated by family members, from left, Nicole, Peter, Jim and Lynn Bartlett.
LEFT: James Bartlett checks on the chickens in their hen house Feb. 12. moments for their boys. “We were always encouraged to be entrepreneurial,” Peter Bartlett said, “and then take whatever we were interested in and pursue it. So moving to the country, I appreciate Dad’s vision for that because he was specifically wanting each of us to pursue things we were interested in. “I just have liked animals. I’ve like birdwatching, being out in nature, and now I get to go be with nature every day and use it as a way to help people,” he added. To achieve that brand of entrepreneurship required start-
ing with the right piece of property. “We prayed for three years,” James Bartlett said. They could have gone to New Hampshire, where his grandparents had land, but they felt they should stay in North Dakota. “We put a map on the wall at home, and we put a red line through all the places we had been,” he said. “The only place we hadn’t been was the Turtle Mountains.” He brought students on a tour of a Dunseith electronics company and drove through the area. Becoming more serious in the search, he placed an
ad for land in the local newspaper. From the three responses, the Bartletts selected their property and begin to develop the business vision. A recounting of their story states they started with a semitrailer, pop-up camper, raw land and a two-sided thatched roof over a toilet seat cover on a bucket. They built a house and began a livestock operation with just a goat barn. They later moved in cabins from a youth camp to use as chicken coops as they gradually developed an operation to provide eggs, poultry, pork and beef. They learned from neigh-
bors about tilling, weeding and fertilizing with animal waste. They also became part of an online network and connected with a remote veterinary consultant. Their first sales venture was selling raspberries at a farm stand. They began getting interest in their chickens, and as word of mouth about their operation spread, they added raw milk. To their knowledge, they were the first in North Dakota to offer raw milk through a cow-share program, which began in 2009. They started with groups of customers send-
ing a pick-up person to their farm. Eventually, the Bartletts began delivering. The farm currently delivers to Minot and Bottineau every week and Bismarck, Williston and Fargo every other week. It has more than 100 customers for its raw milk. Bartlett Farms doesn’t sell raw milk but sells shares in a cow. A single share equates to a claim to two gallons of milk a month. Customers can buy a single share or multiple shares. “We were copying a model that was used in Virginia,” See BARTLETT — Page 2
A crop tour sponsored by the Renville County Agricultural Improvement Association drew farmers interested in production information.
Improvement associations promote agriculture By JILL SCHRAMM
Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com Set up to create an avenue for increasing new seed varieties, agricultural improvement associations across North Dakota have looked beyond that mission to promote agriculture in various ways. For instance, Divide County’s association has supported four new North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network (NDAWN) stations. Scott Sova, Noonan, one of seven members of the Divide County board, said fundraising $25,000 from businesses and farms for NDAWN was a major project and an important one. The stations provide rainfall, temperature inversions and other weather data that NDSU uses in its disease forecasting models. “Farmers can decide whether they need to make application and what to scout for,” Sova said. “Some of those applications can be pretty costly so this gives a guy information on whether he should be doing it and what the risk level is.” In Renville County, the association
sponsors an annual ag show that has seen an increasing number of vendor booths and attendees. About 100 people attended this past year’s event, which featured 43 booths and a program on crop insurance. Matt Peterson, Antler, a past president of the Renville association, said the events have been both educational and enjoyable. “There’s always something new out there, and it’s a good time to get together with friends you haven’t seen for a while,” he said. The shows have had a broad scope to capture the interest of the community, with home and energy programming as well as the agriculture programming, he said. Peterson, who served more than 10 years on the county’s nine-person board, said he also found value in working with the other directors and learning from the knowledge they brought to the table. Every county has an ag improvement association, although the governance and the activities might look somewhat different with each association. Annual dues to join the associations are minimal, typically from $3 to $15 a year. Income to support the
groups’ activities largely comes from a checkoff from sales of new seed varieties in the seed increase program conducted through the associations by North Dakota State University. The seed program is an enormous benefit to producers, said Josh Cook, a Renville County Ag Improvement board member from Kenmare. “I do see the ag board as being a strong player in the seed game, to bring the right seed to market, bringing affordable seed to market,” he said. As a seed increase grower, he was able to obtain soybean seed for this year through participating in the program. “For me personally, that’s going to cut my seed cost to a fifth of what it was before,” he said. “With the price of soybeans, I couldn’t do it buying new seed. Being able to put my own seed back in the ground, it makes it doable and it actually pencils out on the profitable side.” The ag improvement associations are coordinated through county Extension Service offices. County agents serve as board secretaries. Renville County Ag Agent LoAyne Voigt said the association board helps guide many of her decisions about
County associations serve varied functions
what types of programs Extension should bring into the county. “I rely a lot on my local ag improvement board,” she said. “They’re kind of my go-to when I have questions on ‘Is this something we should be addressing?’” The Renville association meets several times a year and in addition to the ag show every winter, it often hosts a crop tour and a banquet. Over the years, it has hosted programs such as exotic animal tours, feeder calf show, shop tours and an appreciation breakfast. Board members serve threeyear terms but the number of terms is limited to discourage burnout and encourage new blood. “We try to keep it a very active board,” Voigt said. “They get to meet producers across the county, and they seem to really enjoy it socially.” She added the association has earned a solid reputation with producers because of its accomplishments. “Just simply because we’ve been so strong over the years, the producers will look to the improvement association for leadership at different times,” Voigt said. “We were struggling once
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with varieties and trying to get information out there. We noticed, even though we’re only 50 miles away from Minot, that some of our variety development seemed to be kind of different than what they were seeing at the experiment station just south of Minot. So our group worked together, and we developed local funding to support a variety (plot) here, just outside of Mohall, and that’s been going now for 18 years. But that was the grassroots through the ag improvement that saw the need for it.” The Ward County Ag Improvement Association will be holding its second Dinner on the Prairie this year. The dinner enables members of the public who don’t have a connection to agriculture to meet farmers and ranchers and learn about their food supply, said Ward County Ag Agent Paige Brummund. The association also holds an annual meeting that features a speaker. In the past, the association has sponsored bus tours and shop tours. Like many associations, it has supported programs of other groups that seek to See PROMOTE — Page 2