Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1441944
Fast forward to 2021, and Upham Farms is still growing hemp, and Keane remains positive and hopeful. Aer all, a farmer keeps hope handy in his back pocket for times like these when Nature seems to pound the farm and spirit mercilessly. Keane is what you might call an accidental farmer. He didn't intend to be a farmer. His farming story begins with a girl – like many stories seem to. He grew up in a Minnesota suburb and was studying business when he met his future wife Dianna Upham at college. While they were dating, he found himself spending his summer vacation helping with harvest at her family farm. He liked the farming experience so much that when Kerry needed help in 2006, Nathan le his job as an advertising executive in the Flathead Valley and moved to Upham Farms with Dianna. Dianna's father Kerry welcomed Nathan's business acumen along with his youthful enthusiasm and fresh ideas for the 8000-acre family farm, which her great-grandfather homesteaded in 1912. Like most of the farms in the Golden Triangle, Upham Farms was mainly growing one crop – spring and winter wheat. Keane says, "I was interested in diversifying and suggested planting ten different crops. My father-in-law is a terrific person. He let me grab the reins and run with it." He adds with a laugh, "It is not something I would do again." Last year they planted six different crops; winter wheat, barley, chickpeas, canola, and hemp. ey became licensed to grow hemp in 2018 and have planted it for the past four years. Growing hemp has proved to be a trial and error process in an industry that was basically in hiatus for almost a century when it was criminalized because of its association with a close relative, cannabis. (Hemp production was allowed for a brief time during the WW II "Hemp for Victory" campaign to make rope, parachute, and other necessary war materials.) Nathan says their first year, in 2018, they planted 160 acres of industrial hemp aer securing a contract with a company 17 farm406 Nathan Keane pictured at Upham Farms with his family (l. to r.) Kennedy, Nathan, Bridger, Dianna, and London.