hello welcome to Kate's Ag i'm here at the Montana farmer's union booth with Rachel
at the MAGIE which is an ag industry expo where people from all over central Montana
come to connect with other people in the agriculture industry and
i was a keynote speaker at the Montana farmers union conference so i'm very happy to be here
we were so glad to have you at the conference you did an awesome job at our state convention
thank you so much and we're so excited for you with kate's ag lots of folks are stopping by
we've got our atv simulator that we're talking to kids about for safety
and then we're also just talking to ranchers and producers anyone who wants to chat with us
about membership but also about our prime issues right now like right to repair country
board and labeling um consolidation in the in the industries like corporate monopoly issues
anti-trust issues anti-competition measures so those are all really important to us and
people are able to just grab swag from the table that we've got here and then we're
also talking about our mobile meat harvesting unit with the montana premium processing co-op
this is an awesome project that's going to be a producer-owned meat slaughter facility that
producers can buy into and then they're able to take their livestock there for direct to consumer
and it'll be USDA certified product coming out of that unit so people can sell it that's really
great atvs are used every day as a modern piece of equipment on farms and ranches and it's very
crucial that you have the proper safety in place so that you can prevent accidents right so we want
to make sure adults and kids are trained equally to safely operate ATVs because there are just too
many deaths and accidents on farms from atv so the more that we can safely train people the better
um so as you can see here there's a whole list of safe riding practices like always wearing a helmet
only one person on the ATV at a time i guess the more people we can train to safely ride
more accidents we can hopefully prevent yeah we actually use it up at our camp to train kids to
safely uh operate atv vehicles yes the Montana farmers union has a wonderful youth camp which
i was actually involved in so cool so thank you so much rachel yeah i'm very excited to
try this out we're gonna get Kate on let's go okay are you ready kate yes okay so pop that on
that's one of the rules of safety if you fall off protect your head so i'll explain everything when
you get on so the demonstrator actually goes through all the tip over rolling points of
ATV so you can feel what those are when you're riding so you know how to avoid those or how
to shift your body weight appropriately that's great thank you so climb on up
so i will turn it back first and you're going to want to shift your body weight
forward because if you're going up and hill you don't want to lean back for sure okay ready
okay now we're going to put it forward so you want to lean backwards
there you go okay now we're going to put it back to the center and go to the side away from me
it's gonna lean towards yep now we're gonna go this way and you're gonna lean the other way
great awesome so kate's an expert now for atvs well thank you very much for all of the
incredible training yeah i'm here at the Montana State University Extension booth which is very
exciting with Adrianne Goode and you're going to be explaining a little bit about how important MSU
extension is yeah for sure i am an agricultural and 4-h extension agent in Pondrea County which is
Conrad MSU Extension is a source for information regarding everything from agriculture to gardening
to water quality canning estate planning all sorts of things and we are present in every
county in Montana and you have so much fantastic information and we actually went out soil sampling
and i learned so much about the composition of the soil and how important it is yeah we do have a lot
of information we do tons of different things and like kate said we do uh soil sampling sometimes
so the spring i went out to do some ph monitoring um looked at the soil ph other fertility stuff so
and the water levels of the and the water yes the moisture level of the soil moisture i forgot that
we did that we did some moisture testing as well that was really cool and very fascinating to me
because it's so important that you look in depth at your soil and the quality of it so
that you know exactly what fertilizers or how to combat some issues that we might be having
in the future oh definitely everything starts in the soil we need to know what's going on there
and MSU Extension is a great resource for monitoring that and then you also do testing
and analyze those results yep and then we help you um decide what you want to do to fertilize
so we have a really handy guidebook fertilizer guidelines for Montana crops i'm looking at it
on my booth right now um it's a very great book to help you make some fertilizer decisions and
even if you're in a garden we can help you with that too not just egg yes exactly and that's so
important because farming is pretty much gardening on large scale essentially yeah well thank you so
much it's been a pleasure speaking with you yeah good to speak to you thank you i am here at the
Ind hemp booth with Kelly and you're going to be explaining a little bit about your operations and
the products you produce absolutely so we're ind hemp we're an industrial hemp processing facility
none of our products contain cbd or thc that's fantastic so we're based in Fort Benton Montana we
are a small community but we've got some big operations going on it is owned by a
father-daughter duo named Ken and Morgan Elliott they are fantastic they wanted to do something
that would give back and help so they moved up to montana and started ind it's great to meet another
family operation that's bringing them direct to consumer so you know exactly where they're coming
from and who you're supporting during that process absolutely and we contract with our farmers so
they buy the seed from us and then we buy their products from them so there's not that middle
man we have close personal connections with all of our farmers are there any environmental benefits
from your hemp products absolutely there are a ton especially with our fiber our fiber is going
to make the hemp crete which you can stick in old oil wells and it reduces the carbon
emissions by over 70 percent hemp can also be used as a natural fiber for clothing so that's
very interesting and could you go a little bit more in depth into that absolutely so this is
what our hemp stocks look like and this is just the stock of the plant we take this threaded part
off and this is what's going to be used for fiber for clothing textile it is really hard you can't
snap it and then the inner part here is called the herd this is our bass fiber and this is our herd
the herd is going to be used for hemp cream and also do insulation which we have right here
wow that's super cool yeah all of the diversity of products you have absolutely and this hemp
herd is going to be great for animal bedding this is three times more absorbent than wood chips are
the biggest industry in montana is agriculture so that's why absolutely that's awesome thank you
so much i really appreciate all the information thank you and it's been fascinating learning about
hemp i had no idea that it could be created into so many unique products there are the
possibilities are endless with it i'm here with John Wicks a Montana Farmer's Union member from
Ledger Montana and you're an organic farmer which is just incredible could you explain a little bit
more about that yeah one of the things i uh really enjoy about being an organic farmer is
the sustainable outlook from it uh we grow a lot of our own nutrients so especially this year with
the high input prices you know a lot of our inputs were focused on last year with cover crops that we
were planting and kind of looking two years out at our nutrition pack rather than trying to buy
them this spring wow that's awesome thank you so another great thing that i like about the organic
aspect of it is right now with the drought that we just went through uh some of our prices are
you know there was quite the shortage so our prices are really high so we're seeing a really
good return on investment on our you know inputs like our seed inputs that we had last year that's
fantastic and what other parts of the agriculture industry are you involved in um i work on a lot
of boards of Montana Organic Association i work with Montana Growth Through Ag Development Council
and FSA and it's just really neat to see all those different elements of agriculture across the board
that's amazing and to help support the family farmer which is really important
yep and we're seeing a lot of good programs come out of fsa right now with the eqip and csp and the
growth through a grants are great for value-added it's really interesting to see all the ideas that
Montana farmers have to expand their business and it's so important so thank you so much well thank
you very much good to have you thank you as well good to have me yeah another awesome education
program Montana farmers union puts on is their youth camp and i was actually a part of that and
had such a wonderful experience and yes we're so glad that you were a camper um our education
camp is awesome it's up at arrow peak lodge in the highwood mountains um i actually got to work there
last summer and we teach leadership co-op skills we actually teach dancing in the evening which is
a really awesome skill that a lot of kids need to learn yeah so that's actually one of my biggest
memories and that's so great um we also get to talk about montana agriculture throughout the
whole camp and then there's leadership programs associated with our camp after the summer so
there's a lot of opportunity for learning and growth through our camp program yes and
what's so important is that you don't have to come from a farm or an agricultural background at all
to learn about agriculture or have a potential career in Ag exactly we need everyone in Ag like
every consumers are involved in agriculture producers are involved in agriculture yes
so that is absolutely very awesome thank you of course i'm here with Mark at Vermeer corporation
here at the maggie show yes we brought uh one of our new things the zr5 we released it four
years ago actually here at this show and uh it's one of the great things and you're also a member
of Montana Farmers Union also a member of Montana Farmers Union and i have a son very involved with
Montana Farmers Union summer camp he's gotten a lot out of it he's growing his leadership and
whatnot over the years by being involved with the Farmers Union yes i have as well and it's
an incredible camp and just experience yeah i encourage everyone to send their kids out to
Farmers Union camp because that's a great learning experience for them beautiful location and they
really remember all those things when you become an adult you know i was told about farmers union
camp we live clear in Billings Montana so that's quite a ways away but that was the main highlight
to come up to Farmer Union camp every summer yes it's a wonderful experience yep through their life
yes exactly you build great leadership skills but you also learn a little bit more about agriculture
and a potential future in the industry exactly and also about just being away from your parents
a little bit when you're young and yeah how to get along and all the great things
you learn there you use all the time and the folks there are the best oh they are and the counselors
and everyone is just so amazing the zr5 the first self-propelled round baler in the industry
that's amazing it's zero turn in the field and yet it goes down the road at 30 miles an hour
with secure steering just like a tractor wow very unique the the pickup is part of the power unit
so you can roll the baler off so you do general maintenance wow with just a push of a button
that's amazing or in the field you can bale up to 14 miles an hour it's just amazing the
versatility with this thank you so much you bet thank you i'm here with Cody at the Frontline
Ag Solutions booth and we are standing in front of an awesome John Deere tractor so you're going
to explain a little bit more about that yeah it's a 2021 9620rx so it's 620 horsepower it's
frame size 9. that's awesome and so our new cabs you have a snack cubby in there you can get a
refrigerator in there too so this is inside the tractor we have our fuel tank cut so you can see
all your hydraulics and you can mount a camera for backing up and hooking up to stuff oh that's
really helpful yeah so we have the hood open on it right now it's got the cummins engine in it well
thank you so much for the wonderful interview and the tractor is absolutely amazing yeah no problem
as well it's such a wonderful time today at the Montana Farmers Union booth at the MAGIE
so thank you so much we're so glad you could join us today yes i absolutely loved it and
make sure to like and subscribe to learn more about how your food gets to your table
and you can also visit the Montana Farmers Union website to learn a little bit more
absolutely yeah so glad you could join us today Kate thank you so much for watching bye