January 29, 2016
CapitalPress.com
Small farm grows larger with diversification
John and Becky
Klimes broaden
offerings to sell
more to customers
Snake River
Poultry
Owners: John and Becky
Klimes
Location: Buhl, Idaho
Acres: 20
Status: Certified organic,
Animal Welfare Approved
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
BUHL, Idaho — Farming
was a natural choice for John
and Becky Klimes, who both
grew up on farms, but they de-
cided to do it differently.
After meeting while work-
ing at the University of Ida-
ho’s Kimberly Research and
Extension Center, they mar-
ried and in 2005 purchased a
few acres in Jerome and com-
mitted to using organic prac-
tices.
The egg business they had
started in Kimberly, Snake
River Poultry, expanded be-
yond poultry to include veg-
etables, fruits, pork and beef,
which they sold locally.
Wanting to expand and
become certified organic, the
couple purchased 20 acres in
Buhl and gained certification
in 2014. They also added
broilers to their production.
They market their products
through Idaho’s Bounty, Twin
Falls Farmers’ Market and di-
rect to customers off the farm.
Their vegetables span
a wide variety, from leafy
greens to tubers. They have
150 laying hens and sell 45
dozen eggs a week this time of
5
Products: Organic vegeta-
bles, dry beans, fruit, berries,
eggs, broilers, pork and
pastured beef
Education: John has a
master’s degree in plant
science and bachelor’s in
ag education, University of
Idaho; Becky has a bache-
lor’s degree in ag science
and technology, University of
Idaho
Family: Three children, Eliza-
beth, 9; Jacob, 7; Kylie, 3.
Affiliation: John, Idaho’s
Bounty board of directors
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
John and Becky Klimes check cabbage starts on their 20-acre farm in Buhl, Idaho. The couple raises a organic vegetables, eggs, broiler
chickens and hogs.
year. The farm is home to 600
broiler chickens, five sows and
about 80 finished hogs a year.
The choice to farm organic
is both personal and economic,
they said.
Organic is “what food was
intended to be and maintains
soil health and biodiversity,”
he said.
“As a concerned mother, I
feel it’s better for my body and
the kids, too, and better for the
earth,” Becky said.
It’s also a marketing advan-
tage, John said.
“The marketability of prod-
uct is much higher with organ-
ic certification,” he said.
While the Klimeses had
used organic practices for
years, moving to larger acre-
age on land that hadn’t been
farmed in nearly 40 years
came with a learning curve.
Longtime organic farmer
and neighbor Mike Heath has
been a big help. He is well
versed in organic standards
and regulations and has the
connections to source organic
seed and feed, John said.
Networking is important in
organic farming, both in sourc-
ing inputs and marketing, he
said.
The diversification of the
farm allows the Klimeses to
sell more food to fewer people.
Yields are on par with conven-
tional ag, but quality is higher
because products are not held
up in transit or sitting on store
shelves, he said.
“I’m trying to capitalize
on every customer I have. I’m
trying to do more for them,” he
said.
John said he’s doing what
he always wanted and he’s al-
ways doing something differ-
ent because things change on
the farm with every season.
With their expanded pro-
duction, the Klimeses intend
to change the company name
to Agrarian Harvest, but that
will have to wait for the slow
season, John said.
This story first appeared
May 29, 2015.
Diversification brings fish farmer success
Leo Ray raises
trout, catfish, tilapia
and sturgeon
in his fish farms
Leo Ray
Age: 77
Business: Fish Breeders of
Idaho Inc., Fish Processors
Inc., Big Bend Trout Inc.
Products: Catfish, trout, tila-
pia, sturgeon, white sturgeon
caviar
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Leo Ray has built a suc-
cessful aquaculture business
in Idaho’s Hagerman Valley
through diversity, innovation
and strict attention to custom-
er service.
Fate seems to have played
a major role in the life of aqua-
culture entrepreneur Leo Ray,
but tenacity, business acumen
and hard work brought him
success.
Ray’s college life at Uni-
versity of Oklahoma began
with a focus on wildlife con-
servation, switched direction
to geology and finally settled
on invertebrate zoology. But
it was a job in college that
would inevitably influence his
career path.
A professor at the universi-
ty had received a grant to re-
search the reproductive cycle
of catfish and the hormones
that control their reproduction
and offered Ray a job working
on the project. The research
would lead to the develop-
ment of the catfish industry,
Ray said.
After graduating in 1963,
Ray taught high school for six
years. But he kept in contact
with the professor and when
the catfish industry began
developing, he quit teaching,
bought land in California’s
Imperial Valley and opened a
catfish farm.
Fate stepped in again when
in 1971 Ray delivered a load
of catfish fingerlings to a fish
farm with a geothermal well
near Twin Falls, Idaho.
“I saw the value of that hot
water” and set his sights on
Idaho, he said.
He worked on a fish farm
in south-central Idaho for
about a year, bought land and
he and his wife opened their
own operation — Fish Breed-
ers of Idaho — in the Hager-
man Valley in 1973.
The operation started with
106 acres of Snake River
frontage, which Ray got for
a bargain at $300 an acre.
People wondered why in the
world he wanted to purchase
a rock field with water too hot
to drink, he said.
“It was perfect for a fish
farm,” he said.
Ray recognized the poten-
tial of the geothermal water
and concrete raceways and
switched his management
from pond production to
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Leo Ray stands alongside a ditch near his fish processing facility in Hagerman, Idaho. Sturgeon keep the water clear of vegetation.
high-density production with
temperature control.
The catfish business took
off, leading to a distributor
outlet in Long Beach, Calif.,
to establish a presence.
“In six months, we had
so much market we shipped
straight to distributors,” Ray
said.
Three years after his first
land purchase in Idaho and
sharing what could be done
with hot water, Ray bought
70 adjacent acres — paying
$2,000 an acre.
He expanded the operation
in 1975, launching the first suc-
cessful tilapia farm in the U.S.,
to provide the fish to the Impe-
rial Valley Irrigation District for
moss control in its canals.
Five years later, the irriga-
tion district switched to carp,
which could survive the win-
ter, and Ray turned to food
markets for his tilapia.
In addition to geothermal
water, Ray also recognized
the potential of the area’s cold
springs and added rainbow
trout to the mix in 1978 and
sturgeon in 1988.
He also raised alligators,
imported from Florida, mar-
keting their meat and hides
from 1992 until 2002. It was
a profitable business, but he
ended it after a shipment of
baby alligators succumbed to
West Nile virus.
“This is still a new indus-
try with a lot of room for in-
novation. You have to stay on
top of it and change with it or
you’ll be obsolete,” he said.
Today the operation raises
trout, catfish, tilapia and stur-
geon on warm- and cool-wa-
ter farms in Buhl and Hager-
man and is just getting started
in the tropical fish business.
Ray also processes the meat
fish and sturgeon caviar and
does all his marketing.
All told, the operation
produces about 1.5 million
pounds of fish meat and 3,000
pounds of caviar a year. Ray
supplies the largest part of
Whole Foods’ trout sales na-
tionwide and sells to 50 to 60
distributors, shipping to 30 to
33 weekly.
“The strength of this com-
pany is the diversity; the
weakness is trying to manage
that diversity,” Ray said.
This story first appeared
Jan. 8, 2015.
Parma, Idaho
208) 722-5121
Grand View, Idaho
(208) 834-2380
Winnemucca, Nevada
(775) 625-1945
Idaho Falls, Idaho
(208) 881-5160
Mountain Home, Idaho
(208) 580-4002
IDIN16-1/#17