A decade later, he bought another patch of Flathead farm, but the price already had jumped to $100 an acre.
By 1962, he was paying $400 an acre; and in 1973 the same acre ran him $800.
“You really can't expect the farm to pay for the land anymore,” Mast said, what with a prime acre bringing upward of $20,000 these days.
And so it's appropriate that when time came to kick off a community discussion of the future of Flathead farming, it was a real estate agent who made the introductions.
Jeff Wilson grew up participating in Future Farmers of America, part of the Flathead's century-old tradition of growing grain, hay, livestock, mint, even Christmas trees.
But the future farmer didn't make a future of farming. Wilson's future - like the valley's future and that of many local farms - was in real estate.
On Tuesday, the agent from Properties Northwest (who also chairs the local Chamber of Commerce) introduced Mast with a recitation of the FFA motto, a creed dating back to the days when farms sprouted wheat instead of subdivisions.
It's a solid motto, all about service and labor and leadership. But it can seem quaint propped up here against major real estate deals, against an industry that has, quite literally, bought the farm.
During the 1990s, Flathead County's population grew by about 25 percent.
During the 1990s, Flathead County's farmland shrunk by about 25 percent.
Today, census data show the valley continues to lose farms at a rate of about 1.5 acres per day. The average age of a farmer here is more than 60, and not a few are looking at the farm, looking at the retirement account, and then looking at the offer from that shiny-shoed developer.
“Our farmers want to farm,” said Mark Lalum, general manager of a local agricultural cooperative. “But they also recognize it as a business.”
Just as the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce recognizes that it's become impossible to talk about business without talking about growth and real estate and, eventually, farms.
On Monday, Flathead County's commissioners signed off on a growth policy four years in the making, a document they hope will provide the broad foundation upon which to build tomorrow's land-use rules.
On Tuesday, the chamber sponsored a discussion about that new document centered upon - what else? - farming.
“This talk should have been titled ‘Why are we still trying to farm in the Flathead?' ” Mast said. “If you were looking for reasons to quit, you could sure find them.”
But Mast hasn't quit. And neither has his son, Scott, one of the valley's very few up-and-coming farmers.
The reasons some farmers won't quit have much to do with family and tradition and lifestyle and pride and intangibles hard to measure. The reasons the rest of the community doesn't want them to quit, however, are perhaps more easily parsed.
Farms provide open space, said County Commissioner Joe Brenneman. They provide clean water and wildlife habitat and big vistas. They provide tax revenue, basic income and the roots for a bigger, newer economy.
He should know. Brenneman's also a dairy farmer, whose family's been farming here since 1917.
“People are coming because they want to live here,” Brenneman said of his Flathead home.
That they're coming is tremendously important. By some estimates, as much as 75 percent of the valley's economy is tied to real estate in one way or another - banking, title companies, builders, etc.
If you want the overall economy to thrive, Brenneman said, you have to keep them coming. And therein lies the rub. To keep them coming you need the open space, but in coming they're eating up all that open space.
The sales pitch is quickly eliminating the very thing it's selling, which is why the growth policy looks for ways to “encourage” farmers to work the land.
Of course, you can lead a farmer to the field, but you can't make him farm. Not when land prices are so attractive.
That's why the new growth policy has so little detail regarding what landowners can do with their land. About one-third of the private property in Flathead County is not zoned in any way, and the new policy does nothing to change that. Instead, it allows landowners to sell it, or to put an agricultural easement on it or subdivide it or develop it or keep right on farming it.
That last option, though, is a tough sell. In 2003, a drought cut yields by 60 percent, Lalum said. In 2004, local farmers lost their entire spring crop. In 2005, disease took the profits. In 2006, a tiny midge moved in and wiped out whole fields.
Against that backdrop, and from the individual's perspective, the sellout can seem mighty attractive. But from Brenneman's more public perspective, the taxpayer's public perspective, the county can't afford it.
Never mind for a moment that farming is part of the attraction that's keeping the building boom alive. The fact is, Brenneman said, “residential development never pays for itself.”
Sure, he said, a house on that acre brings in more tax revenue than does wheat, but it also requires more taxpayer services - as much as $1.60 in services for every tax dollar the house generates. A farm, by contrast, needs only about 60 cents in services for every dollar it contributes to tax coffers.
Add more of those costly developments and subtract more of those revenue-producing farms, he said, and the math runs to the red pretty quickly.
That, Harris said, is exactly what's been happening in the Flathead. He calls it “a huge transition,” with new land uses taking over agricultural acres.
“There's a movement,” Harris said, “and the movement is away from traditional agricultural practices.”
There's also a movement toward more subdivision than the valley currently needs. According to Harris, some 26,000 residential lots have been approved but not built upon, a hint that the demand, remarkable as it may be, is not keeping up with the speculators.
“Sooner or later,” he said, “something's going to happen, and there will be a correction.”
Question is, will any of the Flathead's family farmers still be working the dirt when the turnaround comes?
Farming “doesn't make any sense a lot of times,” said Doug Manning, a fourth-generation Flathead farmer.
But then, neither do a lot of the things we do. A $2 cup of coffee doesn't make economic sense. A 20,000-square-foot house doesn't make sense.
Sometimes, Manning said, you do things - like coming home to the farm - for reasons hard to explain. Sometimes, it has nothing whatsoever to do with tax bases or regional economic drivers.
“I just wanted to be a steward of the land,” Manning said.
Just like the 65 or so young Future Farmers of America who joined the Chamber of Commerce crowd for Tuesday's discussion. If even one of those teens becomes a future Flathead farmer, Lalum said, it will be a small statistical miracle.
“It's not a good time for small farmers here,” Mast admitted. “But I believe that the Flathead Valley will someday try to save its farmland. And I think the sooner would be better than later.”
The back 40
Drop by co.flathead.mt.us/fcpz/index.html for a look at what Flathead County's new growth policy says about farms, among other things. A schedule of town hall meetings to discuss the new policy is available online, as well.
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.
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