Producer Features

Reinventing a person is hard work – and that’s just one person.

At face value, Tim Hall of Hall’s Hay in Idalia, Colorado, is a cross between a hay broker and a hay processor. He buys high-quality alfalfa hay from growers in Colorado and Wyoming and packages it into small bales for the retail hay market in the Southeast.

With a desire to feed top-quality nutritious hay and increase their return on investment, Lars and Ingrid Steunebrink from Kirkton, Ontario, found themselves a new way to dry hay.

Many areas of the West weren’t settled until the turn of the 20th century, so it’s a big deal when Western producers can track their farms and ranches back five generations.

Last November, one of the deadliest fires in U.S. history screamed through central California. An entire nation watched as the town of Paradise went up in flames.

Alfalfa hay is the bread and butter of Alturas Ranches in northeast California – but what’s made the ranch a stalwart in the California hay industry might be a mindset bent on continual improvement.