Montana awards more than $260,000 to ag-businsesses

Apr 21, 2015

There’s still $110,000 in funding available

Ten agricultural projects in Montana will share $260,924 in grants from the Department of Agriculture.

“Expanding value-added agricultural businesses and helping create more opportunities for producers to process and sell products locally is part of the Main Street Montana project. These grants will help boost locally grown products, and help local foods expand into more schools and institutions,” said Governor Steve Bullock.

The recipients include:

Tizer Meats
They’ll use $50,000 to purchase equipment and expand meat production in the Helena area.

Montana State University Extension – Lewis and Clark County
$9,932 will be used to purchase supplies to perform fruit tree research at sites in Lodge Pole and Shelby.

Lake County Community Development Corporation
With the $13,000 they received they will buy food processing equipment to help the Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center in Ronan to build agricultural food facilities and help with their farm-to-school and farm-to-institution programs.

Community Food and Agriculture Coalition
With $15,000 they will assist beginning farmers and ranchers across Montana as well as provide train-the-trainer programs.

Hedstrom Dairy
With their $29,713 they will buy a herd monitoring system for the Kalispell Kreamery Dairy to help improve herd health and productivity.

Powder River Meat Company
They received $50,000 to help with construction costs and expand meat production in the Terry, Montana operation.

But wait, there’s more.

An extra $110,000 has been made available for other projects and agricultural businesses.

The deadline for the application is May 4^th, 2015 at 2:00pm. Interested parties are encouraged to contact local agriculture development centers or economic development organizations to see about assistance.

Join the discussion and tell us if you’re a part of any of the projects that received funding. What kinds of projects in Montana would you start up if you knew you were eligible for the $110,000 in funding?

Montana is making money available to support agriculture

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.