Chefs and farmers meet
Idaho chefs and media representatives spent a whole day traveling through the heart of southern Idaho’s agricultural community, experiencing first-hand where their food really comes from and meeting some of the people who produce it.
The Sept. 8 Harvest Tour that gave them this experience was held by Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s Idaho Preferred program.
“Agriculture touches so many areas of daily life in Idaho, and we are excited to show off the bounty of our local harvest season with a special tour through the heart of southwestern Idaho’s agricultural community,” said Idaho Preferred Program Manager Erica White.
She said one of the main goals of the tour is to create awareness of all the ways agriculture influences daily life in Idaho and demonstrate why harvest season is so important to the state’s local communities and economy.
The bus tour, which included a mix of media and culinary professionals, made its way from Boise to the Magic Valley area.
The bus took tour participants past corn fields, freshly cut hay and bean fields, and sugar beet fields a month or so away from harvest. It also passed a potato field, a few dairies and lots of smaller cattle ranches.
Idaho has about 22,000 farms and ranches that produce more than 180 agricultural commodities, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
White told participants Idaho Preferred wanted to help “you understand the amazing agricultural diversity and bounty we have in this state.”
The Harvest Tour in past years has focused on the Treasure Valley of southcentral Idaho. This year’s tour took participants to the Magic Valley of southcentral Idaho.
“Today, (the Magic Valley is) one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country,” said White.
The first stop was at G+ Ranches in Buhl, where participants were given a tour of the ranch by owner Celia Gould, the former director of ISDA
Gould provided an abbreviated history of the ranch and Magic Valley and explained how previous Idahoans turned sage brush into farmland. Tour participants were allowed to get close to some of the ranch’s cattle grazing lazily in a lush pasture.
“You can get closer,” Gould told some people who were hesitant to get within about 50 yards of the mellow cattle.
Though the beef cattle market is up and it’s a great time to be in the cow-calf industry right now, it’s also a tough life with daily challenges and ranchers have been on the “other side” of the market, she said.
However, Gould, with two young grandchildren at her side, added, “I wouldn’t trade it for any other life; it’s the best life I can hope for … I’m generation three on the ranch and the most important crop we grow here is the next generation.”
Stop two was at 1000 Springs Mill, a certified organic milling facility in Buhl. The mill contracts with farmers to grow a variety of organic crops, including ancient grains, popcorn, quinoa and kidney beans.
It also produces specialty products such as a high-protein, gluten-free pancake mix.
Participants toured the 240,000-square-foot facility, guided by owner Tim Cornie. “We have a lot of room to grow,” he said.
The next stop was at Riverence, one of the largest food trout producers in the world. Idaho leads the nation in trout production and most of that industry is centered around Buhl.
“Welcome to trout central,” Riverence’s director of sustainability, Todd English, told participants. “This is the trout capital of the world.”
He said the region is a great place to produce trout because of the spring water that comes out of the ground at 58 degrees year-round.
“The water is why we are here,” he said. “This is the most incredible spring water you have ever seen. It’s the ideal temperature for growing trout here.”
Riverence is a vertically integrated company that produces 27 million pounds of rainbow trout each year.
“We manage everything here, from egg to distribution,” English said.
Stop four was Cloverleaf Creamery, a family-owned business headquartered in Buhl that produces and bottles its own milk and makes its own ice cream, yogurt and other milk products.
The creamery is owned by Bill and Donna Stoltzfus. Donna said the thing that makes the business unique is that they keep everything local, from cow to bottle.
Bill said most of the creamery’s advertising is done by its customers. He said the operation’s mission statement when it began was simple: “Make the best possible product and our customers will sell it for us. And that’s literally what’s happened.”
The last stop was Kelley‘s Canyon Orchard in Filer, which produces a wide variety of fruit and flowers.
The orchard sells to schools and at the Boise Farmers Market and also does a U-pick operation.
Owner Robin Kelley credited the Idaho Preferred program with helping her get the word out about the farm.
“Idaho Preferred does a very good job of supporting local, small agricultural operations,” she said. “We are one of those operations.”
The program “can connect you to anybody who grows anything in the state and show you how to get it,” Kelley added.
One of the main purposes of the tour was to show culinary professionals how Idaho Preferred can connect them directly to farmers and ranchers, White said.
“We are here to help farmers and ranchers tell their stories,” she said. “We want to be a bridge to the community.
Annelies Knapp, a chef at Funky Taco in Boise, said she joined the tour “basically to learn more about where our food is coming from and connect with farmers. It’s so easy to spend most of your time in the kitchen or running a business and making money rather than paying attention to where the food is coming from and all the different steps that go into it before it comes to us.”
She was part of a sizable contingent from Funky Taco that joined the tour.
“It’s a very unique experience that we probably wouldn’t have had if we didn’t come on the tour today,” Knapp said.
