Farmer Hero Friday: Courtney & Jacob Cowgill of Conrad, Montana

Today's Farmer Hero Friday features Courtney and Jacob Cowgill. They raise heritage, pastured turkeys and grow a variety of organic vegetables in Montana, but their real passion is for their ancient grains. They hope to prove that small-scale farming is a relevant and effective way to make a living in modern agriculture.

The family has now established a 40-member vegetable CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)—the only one within a 150-mile radius. Courtney explains that while CSAs have become fairly prevalent in more heavily populated areas, they are ironically more difficult to come by as you move further into farm territory.

"There are all these [CSAs] happening in urban agriculture, and we thought, ‘Rural places are where agriculture was born, so we might as well give it a shot and see if these kinds of things can happen in rural Montana too.'"

With the success of their vegetable CSA, they are also working on growing their grain and beans CSA that began last year. “We want to get people thinking locally and regionally about their staples too. We don’t want to do vegetables forever. It’s these grains that sort of captured our fancy.”

Click here to read the rest of our profile of Courtney and Jacob.