Grow Getters

How Kait Thornton Amassed a Half-Million Social Media Followers by Connecting Consumers with Their Food

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 16:33:39 GMT

When Kait Thornton sold her first box of fruit, she needed a ride to the meet-up spot because she wasn’t quite old enough to drive. A fourth-generation apple and pear grower from Tonasket, Washington, her shift into selling fruit was inspired by her dad, who challenged her to sell 20 boxes of apricots grown in the family orchard. She posted an ad on Facebook marketplace and “ended up selling 44 boxes,” she explains on the latest episode of the Grow Getters podcast .

Her dad told her she was good at marketing and meeting the public and offered her an opportunity to sell their orchard’s apples and pears, which is the majority of their fruit. “I just enjoyed it and Kait’s Crates was born.”

Gifted with an entrepreneurial spirit, she flourished in selling and marketing the family’s fruit and, while still in high school, started making a name for herself on various social media platforms, especially TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Even during her time as a student at Washington State University, she went home on most weekends. “I was tying down truckloads and getting social media content and selling a bit of fruit on my way back,” she tells podcast host Davis Michaelsen.

Now a 22-year-old graduate, she communicates regularly with a half-million followers as “Apple Girl Kait.” While she still works in the orchards, she fills much of her days creating social media content as well as helping to market and sell the family’s produce.

“A lot of people who do what I do don’t like to go by ‘influencer,’ but I don’t really care,” she says. “I want to change the connotation behind the word. I want to influence people to purchase fruit and to understand where that fruit is coming from and who they’re supporting with their dollar.”

From the techniques used to grow the fruit to the picking process to the complications of shipping, storing and selling, she introduces her audience to the entire supply chain. “I want people to realize that when they see fresh produce sitting on the store shelves, it’s a miracle that it made it there.”

As far as the secret to her success, she points to being raised in agriculture. “There are so many valuable things you can obtain by being a farm girl,” she says. “Honestly, if you can do that, you can do anything.”

Watch the full Grow Getters interview

Find Kait on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@apple.girl.kait

Find Kait on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/applegirlkait

Diversification Drives Success on This Idaho Farm

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 14:55:32 GMT

Diversification has long been a big part of life for the Riggers family on their farm in Idaho’s fertile Camas Prairie. Diverse soil types support a diversity of crops, ranging from wheat (soft white, hard red winter and hard red spring), food-grade barley, canola, rapeseed, mustard, chickpeas, green peas and lentils. Roughly 15 percent of their more than 8,000 acres produces grass seed — Kentucky blue, turf-type tall fescue and reclamation varieties.

This diversification enables Clearwater Farms to remain profitable even when commodity prices are down. It also helps improve soil health, says Nate Riggers on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a Farm Journal podcast focused on how producers are diversifying their operations by starting new businesses. “We’re very sensitive to maintaining soil health and we do that primarily through reduction tillage and growing a diverse complement of crops to stimulate the soil biology.”

So it should come as no surprise that the family continued to diversify its operation in 2019 by starting a new business, Cold Stream Malt & Grain Company, which processes craft malt barley and sells finished craft malt to breweries throughout the Pacific Northwest. While barley has been a foundational crop on Clearwater Farms for quite a while, Nate’s son, Chris, who now leads the family operation, says finding a strong market for it has been difficult in the past.

“We’re not close to interstates or big cities and that’s where the malt houses are and the breweries,” Chris says. “It’s been challenging to have a competitive market for growing malt barley.”

To create their own market and drive Cold Stream Malt & Grain toward success, the Riggers partnered with Horlacher Farms in Latah, Washington, and have added value along the supply chain by offering finished malts under their brand. “The company falls in with the theme of everything else we strive for on our farm in adding diversity in a lot of different ways,” Chris says.

While Chris’s return to the farm in 2017 has played a key role in starting the new company, Nate says the malt barley idea has been knocked around on the family farm for a while. “My brother, Steve, and I were about 20 years too early,” he says. “We couldn’t get our foot in the door because we didn’t have the contacts with malt house and craft breweries to complete the chain. When Christopher came back to the operation, he and our partner were able to get the business off the ground.”

Given that the Riggers family has been profitably farming their land since 1895 and, in 2022, were chosen as a finalist for the Top Producer award, all signs point toward continued success.

Watch the full Grow Getters interview:

Visit the Clearwater Farms website: https://clearwaterfarms.us/

Visit the Cold Stream Malt & Grain Company website: https://coldstreammalt.com/

How a Missouri Rancher and Military Veteran Is Bridging Gaps for Vets and Ag Producers

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 19:55:39 GMT

Patrick Montgomery says he “likes a fight,” an attitude that served him well during his years serving on combat missions in the U.S. military. It’s also a pretty handy frame of mind for a rancher in today’s challenging ag economy, especially someone leading two other related businesses. In 2016, Patrick started K.C. Cattle Company, a direct-to-consumer beef operation selling what he produces on his 420-acre ranch, where he has roughly 200 pure-bred, wagyu cow-calf pairs.

The business struggled along until, in 2019, Food & Wine magazine declared his gourmet hot dogs the best in the world. “We were down to the last three thousand dollars we had to our name the week before that happened,” Patrick recalls on the latest episode of Farm Journal’s Grow Getters podcast. “That’s what put us on the map. We went from shipping 20 orders a week to having 12,000 roll in overnight.”

During the pandemic in 2020, when grocery store shelves couldn’t offer shoppers a steady supply of protein, K.C. Cattle Company flourished. However, a couple of years later, with input costs skyrocketing, he found himself in a new battle, one he wasn’t sure he could win. “Like many on the beef cattle side, we were taking it on the chin,” he says. “I figured I could either quit and shut down K.C. Cattle Company or I could go fight. And that’s where the idea for Valor Provisions came from. It was really out of desperation.”

Structured like a co-operative, Valor Provisions, founded in November 2024, brings together multiple protein producers in a single marketplace, to which consumers pay a one-time, lifetime “steakholder” fee for membership. The producers participating in Valor Provisions are all military veterans. The website explains that the mission is “to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with America’s hardworking farmers and veterans, providing a marketplace that honors their dedication and the quality of their work.”

Patrick sees a parallel between military service and ag production — with one percent of the population providing a vital service for the other ninety-nine. “And there’s such a disconnect between them,” he says. Through his companies, he wants to bridge the gap between producers and consumers and to bridge the gap for returning veterans between their military experience and everyday life.

“What I tell vets is that you can either choose to use the situation for good or bad,” he says. “I did both, but eventually it turned into this, which I hope is something that gives people hope past service.”

Watch the full Grow Getters interview

Visit the K.C. Cattle Company website: https://kccattlecompany.com

Visit the Valor Provisions website: https://valorprovisions.us

From Guiding Hunters to Brewing Beer, These North Dakota Ranchers Run a Diversified Operation

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 20:05:15 GMT

After attending college, brothers Jeremy, Jayce and Jay Doan made their way back to the family ranch in central North Dakota. Black Leg Ranch is a big spread, nearly 20,000 acres, but supporting multiple families demanded additional revenue streams.

When Jeremy returned to work on the ranch, he started Rolling Plains Adventures, which offers hunting packages that have won the North Dakota Governor’s Travel and Tourism Award. Guests are picked up at the Bismarck airport, fed, lodged and guided throughout the ranch, where wildlife is plentiful.

“It was a struggle at first,” Jeremy says on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a podcast showcasing ag producers who have created side businesses. “People told me it was a dumb idea. But I’ve always loved hunting and the outdoors, and I felt like I was living a dream. I just had to make that dream a reality. It has had its hiccups, but it’s been a very worthwhile business.”

The outfitting operation has expanded to include guided ranch tours, collectively drawing visitors from all 50 states and 65 countries. The brothers have also created a direct-to-consumer business, selling cuts of their grass-fed and grass-finished beef and bison meat.

And then there’s the Copper Jewel Barn, a 13,000-square-foot event space where they regularly host weddings and corporate functions. Having transformed old buildings on the property into handsome lodges, they can host groups of up to 25 people for overnight stays on the ranch. “It’s a neat space with a lot of character,” Jay says. “We’re proud of it.”

To echo the classic infomercial mantra — but wait, there’s more. They’ve also opened Black Leg Brewery, which produces a variety of craft brews that are distributed throughout the state and in parts of Minnesota. The brewery has recently partnered with North Dakota State University to offer two additional brands, Bison Light and Bison Bock. “It fits really well into our operation,” Jays says, “and it tastes good.”

As far as advice to other ag producers considering a side business, Jay says, “Everybody has some competitive advantage. You just have to find it.” He adds that one of their ranch’s advantage is its location — a 20-minute drive to the airport. “That’s huge for tourism, and that has really helped us,” he says. The brothers agree that part of their success is due to “thinking outside the fence.”

“People think we’re nuts sometimes,” Jay says. “Who has a brewery on a ranch?”

Watch the full Grow Getters interview

Visit the Black Leg Ranch website: https://www.blacklegranch.com/

How Kentucky's Joe Nichols Built an Outstanding Farm Operation from the Ground Up

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 16:06:53 GMT

You’d think that running an operation the size of Seven Springs Farms would keep Joe Nichols busy enough, but he always has one eye open for new ways to diversify the business. Located near Cadiz, Kentucky, Seven Springs Farms produces 25,000 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, rye and triticale while also backgrounding 15,000 head of cattle.

However, Nichols has a few side hustles augmenting his operation. In January 2021, he started manufacturing erosion control blankets using straw grown on the farm. More recently, when construction on nearby interstate 24 provided plenty of broken concrete, he began crushing and selling the rock. “It’s just looking at opportunities that a lot of people overlook,” he explains on the latest episode of Farm Journal’s Grow Getters podcast .

While Nichols is technically an eighth-generation farmer, he built his operation from scratch. In the early 1980s, when the agriculture industry suffered through catastrophic economic conditions, the Nichols family lost their bankrupt farm and moved to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, getting into the hospitality business. Recently graduated from high school, young Joe decided to stay behind. It took nearly 10 years for him to begin farming again, though he admits that fate had more to do with his return to ag than a clear mission.

“I never knew what I was working towards, I was just surviving,” he says. “I never had a plan.” Survival required a range of jobs, from working for a pork operation to working as a mechanic for a John Deere dealership. “From that mechanic’s toolbox this whole operation has been built,” he says. In the fall of 1993, while managing an ag equipment store, he planted his first wheat crop. By 2000, he was ready to farm full time.

“Every day when I wake up it goes back to what happened in 1983,” he tells host Davis Michaelsen on the podcast. “I think about what I can do to keep from repeating those steps. That’s my worst nightmare.” To keep sleeping soundly, he has remained on the lookout for additional revenue streams.

He credits his managers and employees for freeing his time to think about and recognize opportunities. “If you’re covered up every day and you’re doing everything, you don’t have the excess capacity to wonder,” he says, “or to think outside the box.”

Watch the full Grow Getters interview

Read more Joe Nichols on AgWeb: Seven Springs Farms: Enterprises Come And Go As Market Demands Dictate

Visit the Seven Springs Farms website: https://sevenspringsfarms.com/

This Young Indiana Couple Doubles Down on Tech to Diversify the Family Farm

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 21:48:27 GMT

When Bri Stagge came home after college to help out on the fourth-generation family farm five years ago, she didn’t plan on starting a tech-driven side business or on meeting Dustin Osborne, who is now her husband. But she did both.

She agreed to help her father, Steve, manage the farm in Greensburg, Ind., where they grow corn and soybeans on 1,000 acres while tending a herd of roughly 7,000 pigs. Her top priority was managing her dad’s side hustle, a dragline manure business.

“I was not interested in coming back to the farm,” she explains on the latest episode of the Grow Getters podcast , which features producers who start new businesses to diversify their ag operations. “But the manure business had grown so much he couldn’t keep up with farming and hauling manure. That’s what brought me back.”

She’s now glad it did. Since then, she met and married Dustin, who brought even more ideas about how to create new sources of income. “The goal is to grow the farm operation,” says Dustin. “We’re surrounded by a couple of really big operators, and for us to be able to compete and stay relevant we had to venture out into the side businesses.”

Having worked as a custom applicator for Nutrien Ag Solutions, he knew about applying inputs. Since 2022, both of them became licensed drone pilots and together they started Osborne Ag Services , which provides drone spraying, especially fungicide and insecticide application on wheat, corn and soybeans. They also have a drone spreader for cover crops and a small drone for scouting crops.

“We chewed on it for about a year before we took the jump,” Bri says.

Dustin adds, “When we were thinking about what we wanted to do for our own business, the spray drones made sense. The drone is just the tool. At the end of the day, it’s about knowing what you’re putting on.”

Having taken the leap, they found themselves happily surprised by the response from growers in their area. “We were blown away by our first year,” Bri recalls. “We had more business than we ever could have imagined. We passed our goal by quite a bit in the first year, and in the second year we’ve doubled our business.”

A key to developing their businesses is investing in equipment and technology they can use on their own farm. Then they think about how the investment can create additional revenue. “Everything in our business ties back to the original operation,” Dustin says.

That approach has enabled them to expand Osborne Ag Services beyond drones into light excavation projects, from clearing field edges to fixing driveways. The couple recently invested in robotic technology that helps manage grain bins while increasing farmer safety.

“With our businesses, we knew we were going to benefit the farm,” Bri says. “It wasn’t just a jump off the ledge with no return in sight. That’s always the big question: Will the investment be worth it?”

Read more about the Osbornes in this next gen spotlight .

Operational Diversity Drives Success for a Colorado Ranch Family

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 20:26:00 GMT

As a kid, Dave Gottenborg loved to read Western novels. He dreamed of running a ranch. As a teenager, while working a summer job on horseback in Estes Park, Colorado, he met his wife, Jean, who shared his dream of ranching. In 2012, more than thirty years later, their dream finally came true when they purchased Eagle Rock Ranch, located 9,000 feet above sea level near the town of Jefferson, Colorado.

“We got here a little bit late, but we’re making the most of it,” Gottenborg tells Davis Michaelsen on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a Farm Journal podcast showcasing how ag producers are creating new businesses to help support their operations.
Having built a very successful career in law and in the energy sector, Gottenborg had no intention of playing cowboy on a hobby ranch. He approached stewardship of the 2,800-acre property — which dates back more than 150 years as a cattle and hay operation — with a strong commitment to making it a successful business. His daughter, Erin Michalski, her husband, Matt, and their three children, joined Dave and Jean in the enterprise.

He quickly learned that financial success required diversification. “It became apparent to me early on that farmers and ranchers need other sources of income to survive,” he explains on the podcast. “We need to look at our attributes and how we can monetize them to stay on the land.” They opened a store in nearby Fairplay, through which they sell their beef and other merchandise. They also set up an online direct-to-consumer business, which has found customers in all 50 states. Erin now offers classes to other cattle producers on setting up their own e-commerce businesses.

When customers started asking about ranch visits, the Gottenborgs added an agritourism business to their operation. Ranch tours, wildlife viewing, hunting and fishing now play important roles at Eagle Rock Ranch.

Their main focus, however, remains on growing their timothy-grass hay, which was voted Best in Show at this year’s Colorado State Fair, and on tending their herd of roughly 100 cow-calf pairs of pure-breed Black Angus cattle. In 2023, Dave was named Commercial Producer of the Year by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association.

As for how to start a new business, Gottenborg offers this advice: “Don’t be intimidated. We’ve learned there are a thousand ways of doing anything and none of them are the correct way. People say, ‘you think outside the box,’ but I don’t even know where the box is. We just try to figure out what’s best for us in this location with the resources we have.”

Watch the full interview on Grow Getters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E45Hbl_dqk

Visit the Eagle Rock Ranch website: https://www.eaglerockbeef.com/

Grow Getters: Iowa’s Kelly Garrett on Building a More Resilient and Profitable Ag Operation

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 19:52:20 GMT

When ag producers think about how to add income by starting a new business, they can look at Iowa’s Kelly Garrett as a successful model to follow. But even an entrepreneurial whiz like Garrett required some trial and error.

Perhaps best known for being the first American farmer to sell carbon credits to a corporation, Garrett grows corn and wheat on 7,000 acres and grazes 700 head of cattle. He also co-founded XtremeAg, a digital platform to help farmers make sustainability improvements through educational videos. He owns Garrett Trucking and is a majority partner in KSX Transportation. He and a partner run Integrated Ag Solutions, an innovative soil management company. His GLC Beef is a direct-to-consumer business. Last year he bought the local service station/restaurant in Dow City, his hometown.

But his amazing success isn’t due to some mystical Midas Touch. In fact, his first foray into side hustling didn’t go well at all. He partnered in a business that made pillows, throw rugs and blankets. “I thought I was going to get outside of agriculture and make more serious money,” he explains on the latest episode of Grow Getters , a podcast focused on how ag producers are creating new businesses to diversify their operations. With a rueful smile, he adds, “I lost a few dollars.”

The experience, however, provided a direction. “I didn’t know the term at the time, but it’s called intentional congruence,” he says. “What that means is one business grows out of the other. It’s kind of like a spiderweb. I know it seems like we have a lot going on right now, but it didn’t happen overnight.”

The transportation business grew from the trucks he used for hauling his own harvest. His deep interest in sustainability and regenerative farming led to XtremeAg. Selling directly to consumers was a natural extension of his cattle business. Even the service station fits the paradigm. “That station is very important to my family, my community and my trucking business,” he says. “That’s where we buy fuel for our fleet. And we think we have the best lunch in any gas station around because we have GLC beef going in there.”

For producers thinking about starting a new business, he advises, “Start small and start with what you know. Try to include some intentional congruence because there are hidden profits in efficiency. That will really help you do a better job in the long run.”

Watch the full interview on Grow Getters

Visit his website: https://garrettlandcattle.com/
Visit XtremeAg: https://www.xtremeag.farm/

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