July 31, 2019
A group of about six members of California Ag Solutions along with CASI's Jeff Mitchell were treated to a simply fantastic and very eye-opening tour of the Bottens Family Farm on July 31st near the small northwestern IL town of Sherrard, IL by long-time Workgroup member, Monte Bottens. The visit included in-depth looks at the very sophisticated and state-of-the-art no-till planting and strip-till equipment that has been developed at the farm and also a number of the very creative new frontier marketing endeavors that Monte and his family farm colleagues are involved with including integrating beef cattle grazing into no-till production systems and a broad line of locally-marketed beef products. Monte also presented a very interesting discussion, “Ready, set, strip-till: Proving first-year payback,” at the 6th Annual National Strip-till Farmer Conference that was held in Peoria, IL, about an hour from his family's farm. Monte is part of a growing new wave of farmers who're deliberately looking to better connect with consumers and to also diversify their markets through innovative cropping and creative approaches to farming.