Celebrate National Ag Day with Local Farmers

Let me introduce myself, I’m Kat Peper and along with my husband Brady, own Granite Hills Farm, LLC in Rock Springs. We raise beef cattle, hogs and chickens and grow corn, soybeans and alfalfa. This year’s National Ag Day theme is, “growing a climate for tomorrow” and I couldn’t think of a better one. You’ve probably heard farmers referred to as the original stewards of the land, and that’s true, but our conservation efforts and practices have and continue to evolve as we learn more about the best ways to work with the natural resources our livelihood depends on.

We take our responsibility to care for our land, water, air and livestock very seriously. Those beautiful rolling hills make great pasture for our cattle to graze. The grass roots help hold soil in place on the hillside and the cattle manure fertilizes the grass to keeps it growing strong year after year. During the cold, winter months when the pastures aren’t growing, we keep our cattle in the barnyard around our home and can collect the manure to apply to the crops we plant in the spring, which will provide fertilizer.

Speaking of crops, we use a crop rotation — not planting the same type of crop in the same field in consecutive years — to best utilize and replenish the nutrients in the soil. We also work with an agronomist who helps us take soil samples throughout the land we own to identify areas that are low in nutrients, and need more fertilizer, and areas that have the right level of nutrients, so we avoid over application. I mentioned those rolling hills our cattle graze on, we stay away from growing crops on the large hills but in our area, even the “flat” land will have some hills. We use buffer strips and no-till practices to reduce soil and nutrient loss from rain storms or melting snow that cause water to run across the ground at a fast pace. After all, if we don’t care for the soil we won’t see good growing conditions for our crops or grass for our cattle.