Nate and Tara Stireman

Nate Stireman

I think our society tends to undervalue food and people that grow food. For people that are trying to care for the land and produce food, it's costly. I think we have this expectation as a culture that our food should be cheap. As a small farmer, without a lot of financial backing, it makes it pretty hard to get your product out there. If people are blaming farmers, and they're not growing their own food, how are we going to eat? I'd say there's just a disconnect. If we're going to blame farmers for the lake drying up, then let's all get together and figure out how to farm better.

Tara Stireman 

One of the ideas is that maybe farmers are not interested in making change or doing things differently, and I think from our experiences, farmers really do want to be part of the change. They really believe in what they're doing. It's part of their lifestyle; it's really important to them. So they feel really connected to the land, and they want to be part of the change. We really hope to help folks be connected to how all these different systems impact the Great Salt Lake. In some ways, we don't even really need to talk about the Great Salt Lake, if we're just talking about how we can make better choices for our environmental impact in Utah.

Nate and Tara Stireman are land stewards of Steep Mountain Farm in Wellsville right along the Little Bear River. They use regenerative agriculture practices with the mission to build a resilient system. They grow fruits and vegetables and raise sheep, goats, turkeys, and chickens, which help contribute to soil management and fertility.