RAFT RIVER, Idaho — The Garner family farm is in south central Idaho near Raft River, where Nathan farms with his dad, Mike Garner.

“We currently farm about 1,600 acres, with 820 acres of sugar beets, 160 acres of potatoes and 620 acres of barley,” Nathan said.

This is their 53rd year of growing sugar beets.

“I am the fourth generation growing sugar beets and third generation here in the Raft River Valley,” Nathan said. “We’ve been a part of several other ventures, but in 2020 we sold out of the other agribusinesses, and my dad and I set out on our own and we’ve been farming together as a partnership.”

His father is chairman of the Snake River Sugar Co. and heavily involved in it, so that leaves Nathan running the farm, he said.

“He helps when he comes home, and we make all the large management decisions together — often over the phone when he is busy doing things for the sugar company,” Nathan said.

The farm has three full-time employees.

They also do about 4,500 acres of custom planting for other farmers — planting sugar beets and corn — and about 1,000 acres of custom strip tillage and do 500 to 800 acres of custom harvesting every year.

“We keep this custom business going on the side, as part of our risk mitigation strategy,” Nathan said.

The farm also does a crop share with 120 to 200 acres of potatoes for another farm, and barley acres fluctuate to make sure potatoes are included in the crop rotation.

“In our last partnership we had a dairy, a feedlot, calf ranch, electric company, a dairy robotics company and a sod company,” he said. “Diversification was the main push. It was a little scary leaving that and going out on our own but sugar beets had always worked for us, and have continued to be very steady. My dad and I felt this was where we needed to put our time, and get out of the cattle operations.

“It’s hard to be diversified when we are just a small operation, but we’ve done it through custom work and partnerships with potatoes and other crops that we don’t grow,” he said.

Nathan and his wife, Danielle, have four children — 9- and 7-year-old girls, a 3-year-old boy and a baby boy born in December.

“Everything we do is to keep the farm for the future because we don’t plan on selling. We hope to eventually expand, but at current land prices that would be very difficult. The only way we can afford to farm more ground is through partnerships,” he said.

“I think with what we’ve got, we can sustain our lifestyle for the future. When you add debt load, it makes you more vulnerable. With the dairy and feedlot we were highly leveraged, and I wanted to operate on cash rather than loans,” Nathan said.

One of the goals is to be sustainable.

“We don’t try for top yields, but to be the most profitable in what we do. I am pretty tech-savvy so we have the latest and greatest technology. We have precision planters and use crop management software so I can track every cost and know where every dollar is going, and can allocate a certain amount of dollars to each acre. We’ve made sure to maintain profit margins,” he said.

“We have a fertilizer program that works, but we are constantly changing and adjusting it. Because we’ve converted to strip till and have planters that can do a lot more no-tillage, we are hitting high yields but doing it conservatively. I understand the guys that go all-in on no-till, no matter what, but we are not afraid to run a cultivator or a dammer-diker or a deep tillage tool if it makes sense dollar-wise and does not jeopardize the crop. That’s the philosophy we’ve had, and it has paid dividends.”

It’s important to be involved with the industry and community. Mike has been involved with the sugar company a long time, and has been chairman since 2020. Nathan has been involved with the Cassia County Sugar Beet Growers Association and the Snake River Sugar Beet Growers Association since 2017.

“We try to be active in organizations that affect us directly. I am also on the Raft River Groundwater District board and the Raft River Recharge Group. We’re going to bring a pipeline from the Snake River to our farm and the neighboring farms to recharge our aquifer and make the Raft River Valley more sustainable for future generations. It should have a positive result for everyone in the valley.”