Gallatin County Issues Initial $550,000 to Help Amaltheia Dairy Buy and Preserve its Farm

By Laurenz Busch

Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Amaltheia Organic Dairy received preliminary approval to use more than $550,000 in taxpayer dollars to help purchase its leased acreage in exchange for placing the farm into a conservation easement to preserve it in perpetuity.

On Tuesday, the Gallatin County Commissioners approved their support for the easement, committing $552,000 in open-space funds and marking the first official step for Amaltheia before they can seal the deal in 2025.

“We are very excited, we have farmed that land for 24 years and it’s pretty special, it’s a fabulous wildlife corridor,” Susan Brown, Amaltheia’s owner, told the Chronicle. “If we lost that and didn’t have grazing space … it would be difficult to keep the goats on the 20 acres (that we own).”

Along with four other conservation easements, the commissioners committed some $3.2 million to preserve over 1,670 acres. Still, the Amaltheia agreement is perhaps the most unique, as the dairy farm intends to use the process to purchase the farm.

Started by Susan and Melvyn Brown, Amaltheia Organic Dairy has operated in the Gallatin Valley for nearly 25 years. It is off Penwell Bridge Road northeast of Belgrade.

Today, Amaltheia offers organic goat cheese, vegetables, and you-pick flowers. The Browns’ children, Nathan and Sarah, have also joined the operation.

However, in 2021, the parcel Amaltheia leased for its operation was listed for sale, causing a scramble.

“The Brown family was surprised to see that the 148 acres they lease came up for sale several years ago,” said Brendan Weiner, conservation director of the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, the easement’s sponsor. “Given the high prices of land in that part of the valley, they were scrambling to try to figure out a way to hang on to the property.”

Eventually, Amaltheia partnered with Dirt Capital, an investment firm that works with regenerative farms, which bought the property and continues to lease it for the operation.

Since then, they’ve worked with GVLT to place the 148 acres into a conservation easement that will limit development and maintain its agricultural use while intending to use the funds from the agreement to help Amaltheia buy the property from Dirt Capital.

Conservation easements have been established across the county and provide a way to preserve agricultural lands in perpetuity without the county relying on zoning.

“We get approached by the community with questions and anxieties about how we’re going to accomplish the preservation of farmland and agricultural heritage and what tools do we have,” Gallatin County Commissioner Scott MacFarlane said. “This is it, this is our powerful tool for preserving a lot of open space.”

While the county benefits by having a tool for preserving land and viewsheds and limiting growth, landowners tend to benefit from monetary compensation or tax benefits due to a loss in land value as development rights are stripped.

“This is such a better way of doing this than zoning everyone’s property that the entire community agrees on,” MacFarlane said. “We should all be pretty proud.”

Beyond the $552,000 Gallatin County plans to commit, the National Resources Conservation Service has committed $920,000. The Brown family will essentially donate the rest of the $1.87 million easement as a loss in property value.

The property would change shape slightly, allowing for one future division if the owners wanted to sell a portion, but it wouldn’t impact the conservation easement’s development restrictions.

“No matter what happens we want that land to be in conservation for future generations,” Brown said.

Besides receiving the $1.4 million of NRCS and county funds, Dirt Capital will also receive four 2– to 3-acre plots to sell on the eastern flank of the property. Weiner said it will help make the group whole after purchasing the property in 2021.

The property has a listed value of $3.34 million.

Susan Brown said she’s excited by the opportunity and said Amaltheia would struggle to continue if they weren’t able to own or continue to use the 148 acres on which the business has become dependent.

“We wouldn’t have been able to continue as an organic farm,” especially relating to the goats, which have certain grazing requirements on organic land, she said. They do have a 20-acre parcel but that isn’t large enough to continue the current operations.

Still, despite Amaltheia and GVLT securing their “level 1” approval from the county, they’ll need to get “level 2” before they can close on the easement and the land sale, which is expected in 2025.