With Thanksgiving on the mind, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Evening Group would select a speaker with an agriculture background to join us this week. Duane Stroh is the owner and proprietor of Healthy Harvest Productions, an online supplier of olive oil (and other goodies) that source their product directly from small single estates (and therein set themselves distinct from your average grocery store oils). An innovator in agriculture, Duane will be leaning into his expertise at Healthy Harvest to talk about the pros and cons of different cooking oils, how he started the company, and much more to be thankful for.
Duane Stroh and his wife Melissa of 30 years have been traditional and agriculture business owners. They owned a large farm, and feed cattle for over 30 years. In later years they owned a small grain merchandizing business (Stroh Grain).
In the cattle and farming business they are known to be innovative.
In the cattle and farming business they are known to be innovative.
5 years ago they sold their agriculture business and moved to the Front Range of Colorado and started a successful real estate business.
While in the beef business Duane was a leader in gentle treatment of cattle, and is a graduate from the Bud Williams stockman ship and marketing schools. We ran our cattle out in corn stocks or on pasture as much as possible until they were ready to go on full feed. Once in the lot the cattle had larger than normal pens with plenty of space. As a daily routine the cattle are removed from the pens and exercised in a long exercising pen/alley ultimately lowering health and social issues.
Duane also was one of the first to use ultrasound technology to help make marketing decisions based on meat marbling.
Duane is a graduate of TEPAP a Texas A&M mini agriculture business class.
Duane is a leader in the farming world as well.
Duane was one of the first farmers in the area to start thinking about soil health.
He started strip tilling in the late 80s.
With strip tilling, grazing of the stocks and manure we are able to utilize more cattle feed and eliminate any other tillage. With these practices our worm population and organic matter increased dramatically. In using these same practices we earned many yield awards over the years. We are also able to lower our nitrogen to a corn bushel ratio dramatically reducing the risk of nitrogen leaching.
Duane was also a community leader having served on boards and involving youth in the community on their family farm.
Duane was also a wrestling coach in the community.