22 Potato Grower |NOVEMBER 2015
159850BanCom12h.indd 1 7/17/15 4:22 PM
DEEP WATER
"All our irrigation water comes from an 800-foot
well," says Steve Streich. "So it is cold."
It expanded to about 250 acres. On
graduating from Concordia College in
Moorhead, Minn., Steve brought his young
wife, Jill, back to Kalispell to help carry the
farm into the future. Orrin passed away in
1993, but his fingerprints remain all over
the operation. In fact, some of the Streichs'
current relationships with customers in the
Columbia Basin date back to Orrin's time
as a seed grower in the Red River Valley.
In 2006, the Streichs faced a crossroads.
One by one, their potato-growing
neighbors on the west side of the
valley had either retired or sold out to
developers. They finally had to make the
inevitable choice: quit farming, or move
the whole operation. They chose the latter,
moving the farm and family several miles
to the east, near Creston, and they have
never regretted it.
"Literally, every acre we farmed over there
is gone," says Steve. "You've got high
schools and Home Depots; everything got
built where we used to farm."
But the Streichs have found a home on the
east side of the valley, where they own 300
GROWER OF THE MONTH
