Landowners Doug and Janis Astle, the Farm Bill, NRCS, a county conservation funding program and Bitter Root Land Trust have teamed up to conserve 220 acres of prime Bitterroot Valley agricultural lands in the Burnt Fork’s growing “conservation neighborhood.”

The Astles are thinking long-term about who will need this land in the future. “There’s always someone that needs a little space to have cows or whatever they’d want to farm. And if we don’t set some of this aside in this valley, that opportunity will disappear faster than we might realize.”