A NewGeneration Farm

Regenerative agriculture spurs growth at Sather Farm and Ranch.

- Raylene Nickel

Aholistic triple bottom line guides every management decision Jeff and Marisa Sather make for their fourth-generation Sather Farm and Ranch northeast of Glasgow, Montana. "We want to maximize profit for our operation, as well as maximize the ecological benefit to our land and the social benefit to our community," says Jeff, who manages the northeast Montana operation with his wife, Marisa, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The three-pronged goal springs from the Sathers' relatively newfound commitment to regenerative agriculture. It sets their operation on a course veering sharply from the traditional management practices once underpinning the farm and so many others like it in the surrounding community.

The previous generations practiced tillage and grew a 50-50 wheat-fallow rotation. After graduating from college and becoming involved in the farm's management in 2006, Jeff began making changes.

"We had eliminated some tillage by planting with a hoe drill, but in 2020, I switched to a disk drill to further reduce soil disturbance," he says. "I also got a stripper header for the combine to leave more stubble standing to protect soil from wind, and trap snow in winter." Hand in hand with the switch to no-till came continuous cropping, with a more diverse crop rotation.

Eliminating tillage and diversifying crops helps the farm survive the area's frequent droughts.