SigMT

Phil and his wife Renee have restored the old barn on the property for vacation and hunting rental. The red barn can sleep up to 12 people and has meeting space in the upstairs. There is also another renovated house on the property that can sleep up to 9 people. They also have RV hook ups. Drew checks his bee hives that he keeps on his family's farm. He sells honey directly to consumers and plans to increase the number of hives in the coming years. Steinberger continued, "Larry said it best, 'What we need are people who love the land, look at the land and see what is needed to live on the land.' e mid-sized farm, defined by the USDA as a farm that earns between $50,000 - $500,000 in farm sales per year is in decline. Margins on commodity production are small and so the choice that faced mid-sized farmers in the past was either to get big or get out. Agricultural experts call it the hollowing out of the mid-sized farm. e 2017 USDA census confirmed a couple of dominant trends in agriculture. e first trend involves large conventional farms growing bigger and adopting technologies and practices that make them more efficient and require less on-farm labor. e less visible trend is that in order to make it, other operations – usually smaller ones like the Steinberger's – are diversifying into new products and services, such as ecotourism, niche food products, vacation rentals, and hunting and fishing opportunities, in order to offset low commodity prices. In Montana, the census showed that farm income dropped nearly 30 percent from 2012 to 2017 but it also showed that nearly 300 farms generated over $9 million dollars last year by further manufacturing or processing raw products. Producers also took more interest in specialty crops. Since 2012, Montana added over 160 new orchards and increased hops production from nearly 0 to 1,400 pounds. We might still be in the get-big-or-get-out era but mid-sized farms may have another choice: diversify-or-get-out. The hollowing out of the mid-sized farm SiG MT 48

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