News Coverage
Paint Magnate, Colony Top Ag Subsidy Recipients
Published August 14, 2008
A self-made California millionaire and a Hutterite colony have been the county’s top recipients of federal farm subsidies, according to information compiled by the Environmental Working Group.
Using the Freedom of Information Act to acquire U.S. Department of Agriculture payment records, the EWG has tabulated individual and business farm subsidies since 1995.
The new five-year farm legislation passed by Congress in May over a presidential veto provides only miniscule changes in farm programs, ensuring that ag subsidies will continue to be a mainstay of many rural Montana counties, as well as the state’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the Board of Investments.
Compared to the state’s erosion-prone, dryland wheat and barley counties stretching along the Canadian border from Glacier Park to the North Dakota line, Lewis and Clark County is quite small potatoes when it comes to the federal agricultural dole. The county ranks a mere 43rd out of the state’s 56 counties and, during the 1995-2006 period, received only about $14 million in federal ag funds.
Northeast of Great Falls in the Fort Benton-Big Sandy area, wheat-rich Chouteau County (population 5,970) took in $352.5 million during that same period, about 9 percent of the state total. The top counties, all Hi-Liners, took in the lion’s share of the nearly $4 billion in farm payments sent to Montana, which ranked a mere 17th overall among the states.
In Lewis and Clark County, William E. Moore, founder of Benjamin-Moore Paint Co. and owner of the Broken O Ranch between Simms and Augusta, was top recipient of farm subsidies in the years 1995-2006.
Records show that Broken O (99 percent owned by Moore), Moore as an individual and his wife, Desiree, of Woodside, Calif., received a total of $1,338,509 in federal farm funds during those years. They received payments under three different entities, including Broken O.
The top single recipient was the Milford Creek Colony near Wolf Creek. A new EWG database includes individual owners and their shares of operations for the first time. Adult members of the Hutterite colony each are listed as shareholders with slightly more than 1 percent interest in the enterprise, which received $1,269,975 total from 1995-2006.
The Moore and Milford Creek operations each accounted for around 10 percent of total USDA payments to Lewis and Clark County.
Flat Creek Farms, Inc., of Wolf Creek is listed at number 4 with $558,981. Many of the shareholders of this operation are members of the Milford Creek Colony.
Lewis and Clark County, Montana, 1995-2006
(Recipients of total USDA subsidies from farms in Lewis and Clark County)
Rank Recipient Location Total (1995-2006)
1 Milford Colony, Inc. Wolf Creek $1,269,975
2 Tee Bar Ranch Co. Augusta $780,950
3 William Moore Woodside, CA $653,885
4 Flat Creek Farms, Inc. Wolf Creek $558,981
5 William J. Foster, Jr. East Helena $523,265
6 Broken O Ranch Augusta $450,791
7 Canyon Cattle Co. Wolf Creek $354,887
8 Kenneth Diehl & Sons East Helena $326,615
9 Soap Creek Cattle Co. Augusta $317,292
10 William J. Foster East Helena $252,536
11 Kenneth Diehl East Helena $249,829
12 Sieben Ranch Co. Helena $237,388
13 William and Desiree Moore Augusta $236,440
14 Marvin H. Steinbach Wolf Creek $233,833
15 Running W Cattle Co. Helena $231,613
16 Gary Dobler East Helena $221,637
17 James P. Troy Augusta $212,903
18 Louie R. Bouma Augusta $193,481
19 Novak Dairy, Inc. Helena $174,689
20 Robert S. Simpson Helena $167,781
