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Cattle are a major methane source. Feedlots run on corn and antibiotics. So we sat down with Jackson Stewart, steward of Montana's largest organic beef ranch, to talk honestly about where his industry actually stands.
He makes a real case for grass-fed, land-appropriate cattle as a genuinely different system from feedlot beef — then complicates it himself, admitting that organic ranching is still a small, privileged slice of the industry, and that ignoring the big feedlot players while pointing to ranches like his own would be “pretty blind.” He also gets into a herbicide incident B Bar reported on themselves, costing three years of certified land, and explains why knowing your rancher might matter more than any label.
What you'll hear in this episode:
- The real climate math behind cattle, methane, and feedlots
- Jackson's own admission: small organic ranches aren't the answer to the industry's larger problem
- “It is also a privilege to care” — why healthy, local beef is often out of reach for the families who'd benefit most
- What USDA organic certification actually requires, in granular detail
- The herbicide incident: self-reporting a standard nobody was enforcing
- Grass-fed vs. feedlot beef, and what genuinely separates them
- His “Nana”‘s 1978 purchase of B Bar and 48 years of family history since
- Why “know your rancher” might matter more than any label on the package
About Jackson Stewart:
Jackson Stewart is the marketing and sales manager of B-Bar Ranch, a historic 9,000-acre property in Montana's Tom Miner Basin. The grandson of Mary Ann Mott, who purchased the ranch in 1978, Jackson left a corporate software sales career to help manage his family's multi-generational legacy.
Today, he oversees the ranch’s unique intersection of eco-hospitality and regenerative agriculture, helping operate the largest organic beef producer in Montana. A passionate advocate for holistic land stewardship and the “know your rancher” philosophy, Jackson is dedicated to natural, chemical-free agriculture and peaceful coexistence with local wildlife. Outside of managing the ranch, he is a certified yoga teacher and avid backcountry snowboarder.
Meet the Host:
Victoria Riskin: I am Victoria. I’m always looking for the best life has to offer despite a turbulent world. I find comfort in the environment and joy in friendships. We have a great team of all ages at Bluedot who inspire me every day as we work together to build community.
Transcript
Jackson Stewart: On our land a couple years ago, a county road runs through Tom Miner Basin here, and the county was doing their job and spraying weeds on the side of the road. Ultimately, they sprayed weeds on B-Bar with chemicals. What we had to do as the proper stewards — it wasn't turn a blind eye, it was accepting that they had sprayed. Now, was it everywhere? No. Was it a lot? Not really. But the right thing for us to do was report it and take that chunk of land out of our organic program for three years.
Victoria Riskin: OK, so I'm here at B-Bar Ranch, which is a beautiful ranch in the heart of the Yellowstone area, just adjacent, not too far from Yellowstone, and it's a 9,000-acre ranch. And I'm here with Jackson Stewart, who is the steward of this ranch. And it has a wonderful history. I just have to say that there are 16 of us who've just spent a few days here, and we all agree we want to come back. We actually hate the idea of leaving. And part of that is due to Jackson and the experience he's given us. So, welcome to the Imagine If podcast. We call the podcast Imagine If because I think if we're always imagining how much better the world can be, we can get there if we have a picture of it. B-Bar is quintessentially that. So tell us a little bit about B-Bar, the ranch, the background, the history, and everything, because this is part of your family.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah, so my grandmother, Mary Ann, became the steward of this ranch in 1978 when she purchased the place. And so for the last 48 years, the ranch has been in our family. And it's pretty remarkable to see how it's changed since then, but also how much the same it's stayed. It's been a very creative place where a lot of new things have happened in the agricultural sense, in the social sense. A lot of groups have gathered here, and we've learned alongside them to really learn who we are at the ranch, and also develop our networks of people like you, who gather here for a different purpose, but we get to share that. So it's very much part of that feeling of coming into our home.
Victoria Riskin: The intention. Do you have a mission statement? I heard somewhere that you had a mission statement. What is that mission?
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. So the mission statement I will paraphrase, but its essence is that we are one of the many inhabitants of this beautiful place in Montana, and we are granted a huge responsibility as the humans who steward this place because the grizzly bears, the wolves, the ancient whitebark pine, the aspen groves, the rivers — we have a lot of responsibility, and in that, our mission statement is very much ecologically centered with parts of being an exemplar. So I think in that you get into the business practices and being a replicable model and upholding a business that is good to itself, you're good to its people, and you're true to your core values as you practice business. So it's almost the zen of running a business in a way.
Victoria Riskin: Yeah. So you have two businesses here, at least two that I know of. And one is bringing guests here, and you're very careful about—not exclusive, but careful about who comes. So say a little bit about that, and then also I'd like to talk about the cattle business, because that's a big part of what's happening here.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. Well, thank you for mentioning both enterprises. They're huge to our identity. Both basically started right as soon as Mary Ann — I call her Nana — as soon as Nana showed up, year one. You know, she showed up, learned that in order to maintain a land lease around the private property here in Tom Miner, she needed to raise cattle. And so she became a rancher all at once. And her main goal in moving West was just to find a home, but when she found B-Bar, she saw this vision of inviting people in. We're actually sitting in what was her living room. Her bedroom was right there. Inviting people into her home, these organizations into her home to gather because she felt what that meant.
So the retreat like we're doing now has always been to push the envelope of people and organizations that are doing good work and helping support their missions. Nowadays that's wellness retreats, that's family reunions, it's a lot of different types of missions and groups. And the cattle business, it's changed a lot over the years as well, and nowadays we're the largest organic beef producer in Montana. That hasn't always been the case, and it's actually a pretty small pool when you break it down of who's playing the organic beef field.
But something that we take a lot of pride about is feeding families. We like to think that we want to be a beef that is the healthy option, local healthy option that a family can afford to put on the table for their family. So, at one point we were raising only ancient White Park cattle, which was a heritage breed of cattle. Nowadays we have some of those animals to lead the herd here in Tom Miner, but we're raising a whole bunch of different types of cattle, as long as they're organic.
Victoria Riskin: So talk a little bit about the organic, because there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace about what is really the best beef to get in terms of health, and lots of different labels and so on. And what do you have to go through to be organic ranchers here?
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. The big piece is being organic certified, USDA organic certified, and that's every step of the process from your land, your animals, even the meat processor needs to be certified and regulated by the government on a yearly basis to make sure that you're upholding the standards. Part of that in practice is about your land; you can't treat any fence posts. So every fence post you put into the ground can't be putting any chemicals into the ground with it.
Victoria Riskin: Oh, wow.
Jackson Stewart: And with the animal, you can't use a lot of antibiotics or other vaccines because that's putting chemicals into the animal that aren't organic certified themselves. So, taking a step back, what does that mean for us? It’s that we're really raising land as it's meant to be, with less human additives. And we're selling and consuming beef that is more natural than that from maybe a conventionally raised animal. And you know, grass-fed and grass-finished organic means they've just been eating grass — that's just grass. You know, no chemicals poured into it, no hormones in the beef. And there's a lot of labels out there, like you said; this one is one that's upheld merit for a couple decades now.
Victoria Riskin: So the USDA is rigorous. It's a really rigorous process that you have to go through. And so when I go into the store, whether it's chicken or whether it's beef or whatever it is, if it says USDA organic, certified organic, can I feel confident that that's probably living up to the standards that I'm expecting?
Jackson Stewart: You would hope so. Yeah? And I think even more important than that is knowing your rancher. You know, who is raising this animal or plant, and what are their practices? And I think there's some disconnect when it comes to big factory farming that is organic, and it's hard to know what practices those bigger farms have, and some you can support.
You know, they do have insight into what that looks like. It really depends, and the barrier to entry is often something that seems to be really challenging. But it's just more changing your habits and commitments to what your practices are. But it is also fairly stern and significant. For example, on our land a couple years ago, a county road runs through Tom Miner Basin here, and the county was doing their job and spraying weeds on the side of the road.
Ultimately, they sprayed weeds on B-Bar with chemicals. What we had to do as the proper stewards — it wasn't turn a blind eye, it was accepting that they had sprayed. Now, was it everywhere? No. Was it a lot? Not really. But the right thing for us to do was report it and take that chunk of land out of our organic program for three years.
Victoria Riskin: Whoa.
Jackson Stewart: And so for three years, that chunk of land on the roadside there was out of the organic program. So that's just one piece of what's the peculiarity of raising land, raising animals. And it's something that we take seriously and find it important that our end consumer is actually getting the product that they're looking for.
Victoria Riskin: Do you think other — I mean, you've now been in this long enough — do you think other organic ranches are as caring as you are? Because I know how caring you are. I've been here for five days.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. Well, I think for sure there's definitely a lot out there who we admire, you know. It's a community, so we get to learn from other ranchers. Even if they're not organic, there's so much to learn in the positive sense. And what have they done that we can learn from and avoid, you know? There's so many different pieces, and I think overall the ranching community, there's so much to learn from each other and each other's practices, and every place is different that you ranch in.
So some of the unique qualities that we have here, somebody up in northern Montana might be facing, organic or not, and there's a lot of convergence in our conversation there where we can understand where each other are at. We'd prefer people to ranch organically. That means less chemicals in the soil, less chemicals in our food. But for, you know, if that's not the case, there's still a lot to learn from each other.
Victoria Riskin: Yeah. When they go to market, as they head into the processing part of this, even if they're regenerative, they're filled with corn, a lot of corn and beef down there. A lot of corn. Yeah. And antibiotics, and I think we're beginning to understand that those antibiotics get into our system. So that's one big thing to be pretty careful about, right?
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. And it's all over the place, right? Like, the things that are legal to do, are they always the best thing to do? Yeah. It's like that going back to know your rancher. And oftentimes, you know, you go to the farmers market, these are questions that people want to answer because they care so much about what they do and take pride in their practices most of the time.
Victoria Riskin: Do you feel like the organic regenerative ranching is taking hold across the country, or is it still very small compared to the industrial ranching, which is — that we're all beginning to understand is — neither healthy for the soil, nor for the plant, nor for the human being. So do you think there is some growth in this movement or interest?
Jackson Stewart: It sure seems like it, and there's different organizations that are well-known in the country that are pushing this stuff, and to the extent that it's driving the conversation, I think people are just more aware of what's a healthier decision for them. And there's more studies coming out, and I think it's popular right now, so it's, you know, in vogue. But at the same time, people increasingly are more careful, I believe, about what food they're eating. But it is still small.
The people like us who care are still small, and it's also a privilege to care. So, in the grocery stores where you see your beef — that's ground beef that's $3 a pound or whatever, you know — that might be all somebody can afford or perceive that they can afford, depending. And that beef is likely from somewhere across the globe, and it was probably finished in a feedlot. So I think that there's a way to increase awareness about availability, and it's a challenge because now we're talking about old farmers trying to sell beef, and there's a lack of communication there sometimes, I believe, where because of that challenge of direct marketing or, you know, the ease of the big players to do this, it's harder for the everyday American or person to go and purchase that beef that is from the local farmer.
Victoria Riskin: Yeah. It's hard to identify it.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah.
Victoria Riskin: It's hard to know about it, and yet on the other hand, as you begin to at least discriminate in terms of the labeling, you have a chance. And if you have the good fortune of living someplace where you know your local rancher or farmer, you get to know what their practices are and you're not so worried about labels. So the big concern from a climate change point of view is the amount of methane gas that just is naturally part of the digestive system for beef. How do you manage that or think about that?
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. I mean, I'm just interested because there's so much new technology out there that, like, you know, making fossil fuels out of methane and repurposing waste that otherwise is just waste. And in the beef and cattle industry managed by some pretty big players, I think it's a really relevant question for the overall industry in making sure that the byproducts of their business are taken seriously and they're covering for it, because they should contain those downsides.
Victoria Riskin: But to mitigate the downsides, sort of reduce the methane. I've heard, I don't know if it's true, a little of the right kind of kelp can somewhat reduce the methane emissions from cows?
Jackson Stewart: I've heard some of that. And yeah, I think raising cattle on land that can hold its carrying capacity like here in Tom Miner Basin or how we're responsibly stewarding more heavily farmed land over in Big Timber, being able to raise grass-fed and -finished beef, the land itself sequesters the carbon that is created in the methane. And you know, we're not bunching them up at feedlots for them to be slaughtered while they're eating corn. It's a different relationship. But again, if I'm just gonna talk about us small players and think that, “Oh, we're OK” and not consider those big players, it's pretty blind to the overall challenge of the industry.
Victoria Riskin: Well, I think we all have to consider the whole food industry, and beef is part of it. And people are beginning to eat less beef. I mean, some people are. And I think the question I always have here, and I'm answering my question with you, is if I do want beef some of the time — I don't eat it very often — I'd really like to know that it comes from a good place and it's healthy, because it'll taste better and I'll feel better about that experience instead of cheating and getting something really terrible. So here, you said as you were talking, that we're here in Tom Miner Basin. Who the heck is Tom Miner? And also, tell me a little bit about the history of this particular area in terms of the native community, the Indigenous peoples, going back a couple hundred years here.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. And I'll just say what I've heard, and hopefully not butcher all this, but I think it's a really important and significant thing that we're just stewards of this place right now. White people came here, you know, 150 years ago, and it's such a small amount of time. And you can forget the people who've stewarded this place for thousands of years. And the tribal presence here in Tom Miner Basin, and Greater Paradise Valley even, had been a common ground for different tribes of the Blackfeet, Shoshone, Apsáalooke, the Sheepeaters.
These are certain names I'm trying to get right here. But the common ground aspect of that is that this was an area where people would hunt for their tribes and bring food back. And when people were hunting in a common ground, they wouldn't necessarily be in wartime, which they would normally be in if they came across members of a different tribe. So it's a special place that we steward here, and still there are so many aspects of that natural essence of what this place is, whether it's the wildlife or the different ecology of this place that make it such a special place for people to gather.
Victoria Riskin: Yeah. So you're sort of carrying on that tradition of it being a place for peaceful activity.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah.
Victoria Riskin: And since I've been here, I've seen a lot of wildlife, and they are part of the landscape that you have. You're 9,000 acres, and then I think you have additional grazing acres, too, from the government that you manage?
Jackson Stewart: Yeah, it's from the Forest Service.
Victoria Riskin: Oh, the Forest Service. So let's just dive in. I went yesterday up to Lamar Valley, saw the wolves. It was just so fabulous. Three cubs playing like little crazy kids. A lot of bison, elk. We're gonna go see beavers this afternoon, and you have a beaver dam here that you've kind of helped steward yourself, right? Tell me a bit about that.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah. So I like to start this one with what our land and livestock manager says about stewarding this place. It's that nature's got it pretty perfect here, and we're just trying not to mess it up. Modern humans have made such an impact that us doing nothing is actually not the responsible way. So, to think about that further, so the 9,000 private acres, 11,000 Forest Service grazing lease, we steward a lot of land here, and that comes with human responsibility, navigating relationships between the ecosystem and the animals. And how does it all play a role? And how do we act as not the most significant piece? Because we humans think we're pretty special.
And the beaver dam analogs is actually a project from Taylor, one of our land and livestock employees, who was interested in the permitting process of building beaver dam analogs on a creek. And a beaver dam analog is something that humans make in essence of a beaver dam and try and replicate the impacts that a beaver dam might have on a creek. So if you think about how a creek moves, it's always trying to straighten out. So it erodes into the banks in high flow at certain times of the year, just straightens out the creek over time. And beavers came in, have been all over America for thousands of years to build these dams to basically act as ecosystem engineers, to really establish something that is not only good for them, because when they make dams, it dams up food for them — it helps them grow more willows, which is more food, and they build more dams — but it's also something that creates these diverse ecosystems and a lot of benefits for other animals as well.
Victoria Riskin: So you build it to help the river really, to help the water flow. And you become a beaver for a day, right? Or for however long. So there's so much wonderful wildlife here, and I do have to mention that we saw yesterday a golden eagle, a bald eagle, and a peregrine falcon. It was like a candy store of wildlife. It was amazing. And you have ospreys here, because I've seen them. We've walked around and seen. They're a little bit different than the ones I know in the East. It all kind of feels like there's no competition. Now, there probably is, but you know, it feels like there's plenty of room for everybody.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah, I mean, the diversity — it's something that blows me away all the time because it's such a diversity, right? There's really big, popular, significant players that you see and hear about, but the peregrine falcon, the Clark's nutcracker, these other types of birds even, or insects, or you go down the line and realize how important each of these members' role is to the overall ecosystem.
And there is room, and it is in its best coexistence, I guess. And there's challenges with stewarding that, whether that's us as landowners or lawmakers, or learning that balance because humans are here. We're interfering. What's that balance mean? How much more do we interfere? How much less? I always appreciate feeling small here because it is all in balance and you realize how little you can impact that scale or respect everything that's around here that has so much more to do with how this planet ends than as one individual human.
Victoria Riskin: Yeah. What a great role you have. It's a privilege, I'm sure.
Jackson Stewart: Yeah.
Victoria Riskin: So I think I'm gonna ask you our seminal question. Imagine if. You get one answer — and it can be broad, but one answer. What would you imagine if?
Jackson Stewart: Well, imagine if we were able to, as humans, truly respect the natural world that we live in as well as the human world we live in. Can we respect each other with that same integrity that we're trying to uphold in one facet of our life? Can we try and use that integrity everywhere?
Because with what we're doing at the retreat, it's so important for us to share what we're learning and learn with our guests, and I think there's ever a deepening impact of that. So imagine if we could truly respect and steward human relationships with as equal a caliber as people treat Yellowstone with its relationships to animals.
And I think it's a challenge when the news stories point out the person trying to pet the bison, because of course that's a bad thing. Yeah. But overall, look at the respect we've done with stewarding a place like Yellowstone. You know, it's such a success story overall. So can we do that relationally? Can we act that way with nature everywhere? Can we take a minute to slow down and really truly appreciate? Because, you know, we all have only so much time and it's so meaningful to be able to be involved with the natural world instead of pretending.
Victoria Riskin: It is, and especially here because the outside world really falls away, and you feel you don't even wanna touch the chaos from the outside because it feels like it's gonna spoil the mood and the feeling, because everything feels so in balance here. Now, some of that is nature itself, and some of that is the awareness that you have here at B Bar of how to maintain as best you can and be responsible stewards of this wonderful place.
I can only tell you we've had a wonderful time here, and I think what happens for people is they feel closer immediately to one another because they have the shared experience. We went yesterday to look at the wolves with Doug Smith, who's the hero of the reintroduction of the wolves, and I was very touched by something he said. I asked him, “Why did you become interested in wolves?” And he said, “Because they were so horribly treated.” And as a little boy, it just offended his sense of justice and goodness.
So he's really made a huge difference here in the West, and his life's work has been incredibly meaningful. And it's a gift to humankind to create these environments. We often work against our best natures and our best interests. And we so appreciate places we can come and reconnect, and you have that here. Thank you for being a guest with us on Imagine If. Thank you to all of you who are listening. If you want to visit B Bar, we will put a link so you can check it out. Just even if you go to the website, you'll feel better. Even the website, you did a lot of that, I think, didn't you?
Jackson Stewart: Yeah.
Victoria Riskin: Yeah. It was really beautiful work because it does capture the place, and there are wonderful cabins and a main lodge and a living room that you could live in for the rest of your life. And the people here are incredibly kind, so I feel very lucky.
Jackson Stewart: Well, I feel lucky too to host a group like you who truly respects this place, and having people like Doug Smith and Jeff Reed here in the place, it's just so meaningful because that's what this place is meant for — to learn about the greater ecosystem, learn about each other from people who are such talented and experts in the field, and just sharing, learning about you and everything else. So thank you for coming. It's been a pleasure.
