Idaho

Why One Spirits Company Is Betting On Regenerative Ag And Farmers In Idaho

Published

1 year ago

December 12, 2024

Why One Spirits Company Is Betting On Regenerative Ag And Farmers In Idaho

Family-owned spirits and wine company Chatham Imports is betting on Idaho farmers and distillers to … [+] produce a Regenerative Organic Gin

Chatham Imports

Regenerative agriculture is cropping up around the world. The Regenerative Organic Alliance announced that more than 18 million acres are farmed using their certification practices. In the US, it’s a fraction of that — around 130,000 acres.

Tim Cornie is one of those select farmers pioneering regenerative organic. Situated near Buhl, Idaho, his 800-acre farm grows a variety of wheat, heirloom grains (such as Tibetan purple barley), beans, and popping corn. Much of it goes to his 250,000 square-f00t facility about 8 miles from the farm. He bought an old Pillsbury plant and converted it into a space that houses not just his own crops, but that of fellow farmers in the area.

Tim Cornie of 1000 Springs Mill inspecting a field of buckwheat.

Esha Chhabra

Some of his crop — particularly the wheat— travels about 200 miles to eastern Idaho where its turned into alcohol. Gray Ottley runs the first organic certified distillery in the United States, Distilled Resources, Inc. It just happens to be a few hours from Cornie’s farm. That’s what led the family-owned spirits company Chatham Imports to develop an all-American gin, Farmer’s Gin, which is now the first-of-its-kind using primarily Regenerative Organic Certified ingredients.

Cornie, who has been farming for over 30 years, says regenerative is the way forward. “A lot of it is common sense. If you look after the soil, it looks after you.” But it’s taken years of learning (and sometimes failing) to come to this realization.

And like many farmers, he too has leaned on the experience of others before to him to figure out how to do this successfully for the land — but also for the business. For him, that mentor and friend has been Nate Jones, an organic pioneer in Idaho. Jones had been advocating for organic farming in the region since the ’80s. Incidentally, Jones fell into organic farming for financial reasons. “I was going broke as a small-scale farmer. The model wasn’t working. It was too expensive to sustain. So I needed a niche, and another farmer who was growing garlic organically helped me covert over.”

Tim Cornie (left) with Nate Jones (right) in Idaho.

Esha Chhabra

Today, he farms more than 700 acres, like Cornie. The duo meet up and talk pest control, cover crops, weed abatement, soil, and experimental patches in their fields that may or may not have panned out. “It’s a lot of trial and error, even if you know what you’re doing,” says Cornie.

But Jones didn’t just advocate for organic farming. He also included some regenerative practices: such as using cover crops and rotation cycles. Today, he says the organic industry is becoming “commodotized” and that’s pushing prices downward. It’s also a lot a “substitute farming,” he says, where farmers are simply using market-bought fertilizers and pesticides that are organic-approved to swap out the conventional ones. They’re not really experimenting with crops, weed management, and rotation cycles to improve the soil’s potential. That is true organic farming, in his opinion — and one that’s now being identified more with regenerative organic.

Though both Cornie and Jones do admit that their ways can be more expensive, and sometimes require more labor, with smaller yields, it can pay off. For one, they see it in their soils. “I don’t like to brag,” jokes Jones, “but I’ve got a neighbor that can see my farm from his, and he’s said to me, ‘That soil is just unbelievable.’”

Cornie chimes in, “Ya, I always joke that the ducks like to come to my field of corn, rather than going to the neighbors. They know which one is healthier.”

But there’s one key advice that Jones imparted to Cornie (and advises other farmers who want to get into regenerative organic farming): “Have a buyer. Have a market ready for your crop always. Otherwise, it’s much harder.”

That’s where Chatham Imports comes in. The company agreed to buy Cornie’s wheat in advance. With that in mind, Cornie can grow the crop without worry. Unlike some of the other beans and grains he’s got in the field destined for his own brand, the wheat has a home.

It’s trucked down to Ottley’s distillery, which in many ways is an extension of Cornie’s eco-minded philosophy: the facility has run on wind energy for nearly two decades, been certified organic since 2000, and is helping support the local ecology.

Gray Ottley of Distilled Resources, Inc in Idaho.

Distilled Resources, Inc

Ottley and Cornie actually met a decade ago. “In 2015, we met Tim Cornie and he was beginning to build out his new business, 1000 Springs Mill, in Buhl. It was the perfect match for us. Because not only did he grow the wheat, he also milled it, which is something we’d have to do offsite.”

Ottley was excited about the prospect that every step of the process could be traced. “The chain of custody,” he says, “can now trace from the dirt it was grown in by the farmers, to where it was milled and then to the facility it was boiled in, fermented, and distilled. That’s what organic is all about. It’s about the traceability of the agricultural product through to a finished product for humans.”

And Ottley was especially excited to see that Cornie was interested in sustainable and regenerative farming — given that each bottle of gin uses about 2.5 pounds of wheat. “It’s good to know that we’re able to support a more sustainable future as well with our hero ingredient.”

That hero ingredient then goes through a detailed process that Ottley says could include a 100 variables before one lands on an alcohol that has a “sweet flavor in the front of the tongue, is smooth in the throat, and doesn’t, what we say ‘burn the gill,’ going down. Farmer’s Gin has that smooth, sippable quality.”

Priced at around $30, it’s not the cheapest of the gins. But there’s a reason for that. “How are we going to support these farms, these communities with bottom-of-the-barrel commodity pricing? We need a better model,” says Cornie, driving through the back roads of Buhl.

For him, gin is just the beginning, and one of the many tentacles to his operation. But he hopes that more companies back America’s regenerative organic farmers who are looking for a healthier model for farmers and the soil. “We’ve got to start eating better, and looking after ourselves better. At the root of all that is farming.”

Cornie hopes that, in addition to being the farmer of Farmer’s Gin, his own brand 1000 Springs Mill can help Americans discover a pantry of US-grown regenerative organic everyday staples, which he sells to grocers across the US and online directly.

Source link

Related Topics:Featured gin Idaho organic organic alcohol organic grains organic wheat regenerative agriculture regenerative organic ROC Spirits

Click to comment

Idaho

PUC takes comments on Idaho Power fire mitigation plan | Capital Press

Published

10 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

PUC takes comments on Idaho Power fire mitigation plan

Published 2:20 pm Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Idaho law requires utilities file annual plan

State regulators will take written comments through Feb. 12 on Idaho Power’s wildfire mitigation plan, a document that the company has submitted in each of the last five years and is now required under 2025 legislation.

The current edition of the plan includes information on the use of software to identify wildfire risk, on efforts to enhance the Boise-based utility’s wildfire situational awareness, and on how design methods for new transmission lines and upgrades of existing lines will reduce wildfire ignition potential in heightened risk areas, according to an Idaho Public Utilities Commission news release.

The Western U.S. has experienced an increase in the frequency and intensity of wildland fires due to factors including changing climatic conditions, increased human encroachment in wildland areas, historical land management practices and changes in wildland and forest health, according to the application Idaho Power filed with the PUC.

“While Idaho has not experienced fires to the same magnitude as some other Western states, Idaho’s wildfire season has grown longer and more intense,” according to the application. “Warmer temperatures, reduced snowpack and earlier snowmelt contribute to drier conditions, extending the period of heightened fire risk.”

Wildfire law

A 2024 peak wildfire season that started earlier than usual, ended late, was busy throughout and caused substantial damage was a factor in the 2025 Idaho Legislature passing Senate Bill 1183, the Wildfire Standard of Care Act.

The law aims to protect utilities’ customers and member owners by empowering the PUC to set expectations and hold the utilities and strong standards, and outline liabilities for utilities that fail to meet the requirements, according to the bill’s purpose statement.

Wildfires in recent years have “bankrupted utilities and driven their customers’ monthly bills to crippling levels. In part this is due to courts holding utilities liable for wildfire damages despite no finding of fault or causation,” according to the purpose statement.

As for liability, in a civil action where wildfire-related damages are sought from the utility, “there is a rebuttable presumption that the electric corporation acted without negligence if, with respect to the cause of the wildfire, the electric corporation reasonably implemented a commission-approved mitigation plan,” the bill text reads.

Each electric utility’s mitigation plan identifies areas where the utility has infrastructure or equipment that it says may be subject to heightened risk of wildfire, states actions the utility will take to reduce fire risk, and details how public outreach will be done before, during and after the season, according to the PUC release.

Idaho Power’s new mitigation plan includes an updated risk zone map, and qualitative risk adjustments by area to account for unique factors that may raise or lower risk because of changes that have occurred over time, such as to vegetation composition due to fire impacts, according to the application.

Comments on the case, IPC-E-25-32, can be submitted online or at secretary@puc.idaho.gov.

Source link

Idaho

Idaho lawmakers, advocates push for CPS reform ahead of legislative season

Published

22 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Idaho lawmakers, advocates push for CPS reform ahead of legislative season

As Idaho lawmakers prepare for a new legislative session, child welfare reform is emerging as a priority for some legislators and advocacy groups.

A local parents’ rights organization and a Canyon County lawmaker say they plan to introduce legislation aimed at changing how Child Protective Services operates in Idaho — legislation they say is designed to better protect children while keeping families together.

Supporters of the proposed bills say one of the key issues they are trying to address is what they call “medical kidnapping.”

In a statement of purpose, supporters define medical kidnapping as “the wrongful removal of a child from a parent when abuse or neglect has not been established.”

WATCH: Legislator and advocate explain reforms to CPS

Idaho lawmakers, advocates push child welfare reforms ahead of legislative session

Republican Representative Lucas Cayler of Caldwell says current Idaho law defines kidnapping, but does not specifically address situations involving medical decisions made by parents.

“Currently, kidnapping is defined in Idaho statute, but medical kidnapping is not,” Cayler said.

RELATED| Idaho legislators request Health & Welfare pause childcare grants ‘pending fraud prevention measures’

Cayler says supporters believe these situations can occur in hospital settings — when parents seek medical care for their child but question a test, refuse a treatment, or request a second opinion.

“Our children are one of our most valuable parts of our society, and a child’s best chances of success and happiness is with their parents,” Cayler said. “We shouldn’t be looking for reasons to separate families over specious claims of abuse or neglect.”

Kristine McCreary says she believes it happened to her.

McCreary says her son was removed from her care without signs of abuse — an experience that led her to found POWER, Parents Objective With Essential Rights. The organization works with families who believe their children were unnecessarily removed by Child Protective Services.

“We’re seeing CPS come out and remove children when they shouldn’t, and not come out when they should,” McCreary said. “We have a serious issue.”

McCreary says POWER is urging lawmakers to take up the issue during this legislative session.

RELATED|Governor Brad Little celebrates a ‘productive 2025 legislative session’

Supporters of the legislation say the concern is not whether child protection is necessary, but whether it is being applied consistently.

“We’re hoping that with our bills, we can correct those issues, to protect families, prevent harm, and create accountability,” McCreary said.

Cayler echoed that sentiment, saying families should be afforded the same legal standards applied in other cases.

“You and I are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and in many cases we’re finding that standard isn’t being applied consistently,” he said.

The Idaho legislative session begins next week. The proposed bills are expected to be introduced in committee before moving through both chambers of the legislature. If approved, they would then head to the governor’s desk for consideration.

(DELETE IF AI WAS NOT USED) This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been, in part, converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

Source link

Idaho

Local school administrator named Idaho’s Superintendent of the Year – East Idaho News

Published

1 day ago

January 6, 2026

Press Room

Local school administrator named Idaho’s Superintendent of the Year – East Idaho News

REXBURG — A local school administrator has been named Idaho Superintendent of the Year for 2026, recognizing his work at Madison School District.

According to a news release from the Idaho Association of School Administrators, Randy B. Lords Jr., the superintendent of Madison School District 321, was selected to represent Idaho as a nominee for the National Superintendent of the Year award.

He became superintendent for the district in 2021, where he has focused on improving academics through new programs and fostering the well-being of students and staff.

Lords was chosen, according to the release, due to his work on three main points:

His support for career and technical education programs for students and for the use of an artificial intelligence-literacy program.
His work on fiscal responsibility, with a focus on the district’s future growth and maintenance of its facilities.
His work to improve parent and community involvement with the school district.

The ISAS executive director highlighted in the release Lords’ work to navigate the intricacies of leadership and improve the district’s academics.

“This recognition deeply humbles me, but this award belongs to the incredible faculty, staff and students of Madison School District,” Lords stated in the release. “Our success is a testament to the collaborative spirit of our community. I am honored to serve our families and will continue to work tirelessly to ensure every student has a world of opportunities at their fingertips.”