Family operation focuses on regenerative practices

Published 6:20 am Wednesday, February 5, 2025

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The McIntyre family of Caldwell, Idaho, operate McIntyre Pastures and McIntyre Farms, which raise cattle and chickens using regenerative farming practices and includes a retail shop on the property. (Courtesy Shayne Center Photo)

Loren McIntyre feeding silage bales to a group of feeder cattle. (Courtesy McIntyre Pastures)

Jill McIntyre looks for cracked eggs .( Brad Carlson/Capital Press)

Loading meat chickens for harvest. (Courtesy McIntyre Pastures)

Maria McIntyre in the McIntyre Pastures store. (Courtesy Marilyn Isaac Photography)

CALDWELL, Idaho — An emphasis on regenerative practices and keeping multiple generations involved in the operations characterize McIntyre Pastures and McIntyre Farms, both of which continue to progress after the family started to shift away from mostly conventional hay farming about 15 years ago.

“We’ve grown in the last few years, and we’re at a stage where we just need to get better at our craft,” said Brad McIntyre, co-owner with his father, Loren, and brother, Ben. “We need to make sure we’re doing the very best job we can.”

The operation got more successful over time even though yields didn’t always rise, he said. “The profitability of the farm has increased, and that is due to soil health and all of those things.”

“We always had some animals,” Ben said. “We started really going in about 2015 with a little bit of eggs and grazing.” Consumer-direct sale of eggs and meat was up and running in 2018.

McIntyre Pastures offers pasture-raised beef, pork, chicken and turkey along with fresh eggs. McIntyre Farms encompasses the farming operation and a seed business, which cleans, packs and sells seed including for cover crops.

The operations combined encompass about 1,200 acres, half of which are leased. Soil health and other regenerative practices are used on all the ground.

“For us, it has always paid to do these practices,” Brad said. This is not just what our hearts feel is best.”

Patriarch embraces change

“This is the 19th or 20th year since we started dabbling in no-till,” Loren said. “It was very minor. We didn’t have a lot of the things incorporated that we do now. It was scratching the surface of the regenerative-ag portion of it.

“I was the stumbling block, you might say,” he said.

Loren, a third-generation farmer who started early, said he “had grown up and had success doing it a different way, like my father had. But I was open-minded at the same time.”

It didn’t take long to see some success.

“We didn’t have any big, negative problems,” Loren said. “We had little problems that you come up with when you’re doing something different, but we didn’t see a big decrease in yield right off the bat.”

He realized that his father, Frank, who died when Loren was 17, “had a fairly good grasp on some really good practices as far as soil health.

“He grew up before chemicals and the big push for commercial fertilizer,” Loren said of his dad. “He had a very balanced farm. He had dairy cows — and they were pastured, so that is something I knew was important for soil health. It tied right into what we do today.”

Loren took the farm in some new directions. He shifted to natural fertilizers, “and there were some real problems. I soon learned there needed to be a balance of all things,” he said.

“And we had gotten away from the cattle, which was a mistake,” he said.

Whole-systems approach

“We’re kind of bringing it back to what our grandparents were doing, but we’re selling locally,” Brad said.

“We would consider ourselves ‘regenerative’,” he said. “We don’t love ‘sustainable’ because sustainable means staying the same.”

Regenerative agriculture aims to enhance how soil and other natural systems function, according to the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation. Retaining soil carbon and improving soil biodiversity, mineral content and water retention are examples.

The McIntyres take a whole-systems approach to farming and to raising livestock, said University of Idaho extension educator Brad Stokes. Soil conservation, below-ground interactions, and above-ground plant diversity that enhances the environment are among factors they consider.

Their management-intensive grazing helps soil and plant diversity, and their cover crop system is a boost to pollinators and other beneficial insects including natural enemies to pests, he said.

“These practices lead to mineral-rich and high-quality agricultural and livestock products for consumers … helping to preserve and greatly enhance agricultural ecosystems into the future,” Stokes said.

Bee scientist Ron Bitner’s vineyard is next to the McIntyres’ leased fields, which he said have “reduced weeds and better water retention on the sandy loam soils.”

Brad has worked with Bitner’s bee research and surveying and has developed bee-friendly seed mixes that have produced excellent results such as a wide variety of blooms, Bitner said. These progressive farming skills “have shown what the future holds for agriculture here in southwest Idaho and elsewhere.”

Tim Cornie, a Buhl-area regenerative farmer who owns 1000 Springs Mill, said he praises the McIntyres’ management style, and “I embrace their providing a different variety of commodities and ingredients to the community. We have similar beliefs in what we are doing, and it’s a difficult thing that we do.”

McIntyre Farms is “not afraid to be innovative or try new things,” said Rick Waitley, who directs Idaho Agriculture in the Classroom, Leadership Idaho Agriculture and other groups. “Way before cropping systems were talked about much, Brad was already doing his own research and experimenting with what he thought could greatly enhance soil quality on the farm.”

Generational agriculture

“To visit the McIntyre operation is to see a true farm family at work and linked together in a team relationship,” Waitley said.

The farm hosts tours frequently, “and visitors are often surprised by the engagement and knowledge of the grandchildren,” who “know about how the whole farm works,” he said. When the on-farm store opened, more family members of various ages could be seen getting involved in the farm and learning day-to-day operations.

Loren and Kathy McIntyre have worked on a succession plan for the 115-year-old farm. Loren, Ben and Brad formed a corporation in 2009 as they started prioritizing soil health. One of Ben’s and Brad’s brothers works at the farm and another owns a hay brokerage and helps out; neither has ownership in McIntyre Farms Inc.

The succession plan is solid but members of the next generation are in their late teens or younger. Interest among the children “seems good,” Brad said. “Definitely in the talking is to pass it on.”

Succession planning becomes more complex when more people and operations are involved, but it’s an advantage when multiple generations know how the farm works and know each person’s role, said Colby Field, UI extension educator in risk management.

Loren said Brad is skilled in financial and organizational management, “leans toward and loves farming,” and enjoys talking to people about ag. Ben “has always enjoyed the animals … and the equipment, too. He has a high level of iron in his blood.”

Maria McIntyre, Ben’s wife, manages meat and egg sales and heads the operation of the store, which opened two-plus years ago.

“We were pleasantly surprised at the beginning at how many people came out,” Maria said. Increased interest in food grown locally helped, as did on-farm classes and tours.

“The run on eggs because of avian flu is alive and well,” she said Jan. 8. The store last raised prices, by 12%, about two years ago.

The comparatively moderate price increase reflects factors including setting fixed costs over a year and growing most feed ingredients, Brad McIntyre said. “We have a pretty good idea what the eggs are going to cost, barring some disaster on our end.”

Work continues

Chickens rotate on pasture daily in summer. In winter, they move to a house from which they can access 10 acres of pasture, though recently they have been kept inside — away from migratory waterfowl drawn to nearby Lake Lowell and away from guardian dogs.

“It’s just a crazy situation right now during migration season,” Ben said.

Loren and Ben spent part of January bringing in extra cattle to graze cover crops.

“We have not gotten them all in here yet,” Loren McIntyre said Jan. 13. “We have done it before.”

The cows in McIntyre Pastures’ retail meat pipeline cannot graze all available forage, so “we have had to go buy some extra to graze some cover crops,” Ben said. “We have an excessive amount of cover crops. We are figuring out how to grow cover crops better.”

The cattle originated from an operation that uses the same practices and will be sold when heavier. The amount of forage they will consume exceeds what can be sold locally.

“This is not our first rodeo,” Loren said. “We grow too much feed.”