Growing Organic
Food in Montana
To the right is a picture of David
Ronniger’s farm in the town site
of Camas located on the Flathead
Indian Reservation. The farm supplied the Camas Natural Food
Store with close to fifty percent of
the organic vegetables this season.
Photograph by S.F. Roberts
David Ronniger says he sees himself as a
happy go lucky kind-of-guy. He came to Hot
Springs for much the same reason as many
who live here, the water. A carpenter and
builder by trade he also has a farming side.
In March 1993 he was written up in The
New Yorker by Jamaica Kincaid who wrote,
“On the day, a few weeks ago, that the temperature was ten below zero, the Ronniger
Seed Potatoes catalogue arrived, and that was
the cherriest thing, for I spent the afternoon
sitting in a bathtub of hot water, trying to satisfy a craving for over chilled ginger ale and
oranges and reading this little treasure.” Ronniger’s farming in northern Idaho also garnered him articles in the Sandpoint, Idaho
magazine, and National Gardening Magazine.
Ronniger moved at age 26 to Moyie
Springs, Idaho where for thirty-four years he worked to build a farm that mail ordered seed potatoes to American gardeners, hobbyists and small farmers. Offering over 200 varieties of potato, he shipped these specialty potatoes as far away as New York City,
Palm Beach, Florida, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
He raises and breeds Haflinger horses assisting with their introduction to the western U.S. along with two other breeders. He
also finds time to maintain a Native Seed Foundation which collects and processes over 30 species of seeds from wild scrubs,
some grasses.
In May of 2011 Ronniger opened the Camas Natural Foods store on the Main
Street of Hot Springs, Montana. The store offers many different options for
purchasing organic and natural foods from rice, flour, sugars, vitamins, spices,
herbs, and a produce department with organic vegetables. In the last year fifty
percent of the organic vegetables available came from his small farm in Camas,
an old town site situated a few miles from Hot Springs. This year the lettuce,
kales, beets, celery, peppers of all kinds, egg plants, potatoes (including blues),
onions, shallots, garlic and carrots have been delicious. Small communities
such as this one, located on the Flathead Indian Reservation are lucky to have
this wonderful asset, thanks to the hard work of a man who likes feeding people.
Visit his Native Seed Foundation at:
www.nativeseedfoundation.com
The West Old & New Page 9