Northwest Montana farmers say canola remains a marketable and reliable crop

Expansive fields distinguished by bright yellow flowers dot Northwest Montana in the summer, showcasing the work of farmers raising a crop that has been utilized for decades for its benefits to the soil and consistent market demand.  

With plants from 3 to 5 feet tall, canola produces pods from which seeds are harvested and crushed to create canola oil and meal used for livestock feed. The plants produce small, yellow flowers which bring beauty to those passing by.  

Canola is a result of plant breeding that aimed to change the nutritional makeup of rapeseed, which has historically been used to make oil but wasn’t ideal for cooking due to its high amount of erucic acid, according to the Pacific Northwest Canola Association. The newly developed seed was renamed “canola”— a combination of “Canada Oil Low Acid,” and was registered in Canada in 1979.  

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade status for canola in the U.S. was attained in 1985, and the name “canola” finally could be used for the 1988 harvest, according to the PNW Canola Association. 

“The PNW has been kind of slow to get moving on the canola front. North Dakota is the biggest producer [in the U.S.] with over 2 million acres. They're way ahead of any other state in terms of acreage. And it's primarily all spring canola, which is the same in Montana too ... though winter canola is taking a little bit more of a hold,” said Kate Sowers, PNW Canola Association executive director.  

With the region’s proximity to Canada, it’s no wonder many Montana farmers took up planting canola in the mid-1990s. Farmers choose canola because of its benefits as a rotational crop, but it’s also great for pollinators, helps control weeds, has herbicide-resistant traits and has a tap root, which helps with water infiltration, according to Sowers. 

“The classic rotation of pest and disease cycles that would normally be in your cereal crops, come through this other crop and go ‘what is this?’” Sowers said.  

Montana included more than 200,000 acres of canola last year, according to the Pacific Northwest Canola Association. Flathead County had about 7,600 acres planted in canola while adjacent Lake County had just under 1,000 acres, and Glacier County had about 4,000 acres.  

A leading agricultural state, the top crops in Montana are wheat, hay, barley and pulse crops like lentils and dry peas. The state also ranks highly in the production of several other crops, including sugar beets, canola and organic wheat.  

Farmers in Northwest Montana largely plant wheat, barley, hay, lentils and canola, like Tryg Koch with Heritage Customs Farms. Koch farms 3,000 acres on 100% leased land. Working in the agriculture sector his entire life, many felt it was impossible to start a farm with the associated costs and price of real estate in Montana. But he was able to see it through. 

“We do a lot of small acreage management. So that's how it started off; we did a lot of pasture renovation, spray weeds, custom haying — people will hire us to hay for them. And then it transitioned into this over the years, where we now have these, these fields that we farm,” Koch said.  

There are two ways to harvest canola, which include letting it ripen standing, later cutting it with a combine, as well as swathing it. Koch said swathing requires waiting until there’s a 40% or 50% color change in the field, then swathing and putting it in windrows, which will later be harvested by combine. 

The flower of canola later produces a pod, which is heated and crushed to extract the oil. The rest of the plant is sold as food for livestock.   

Canola oil is widely used for cooking and food processing. Additionally, canola has non-food applications like biodiesel production and is a component in various products like cosmetics and plastics.  

MANY FARMERS gave up on canola during the early 2000s as interest in canola production dropped, according to the PNW Canola Association. Back then, most of the canola being produced here was delivered to a processing facility in Lethbridge, Alberta, or shipped whole seed to Japan. Interest increased, and two processing facilities started operating in Washington. 

These days, many farmers are finding that canola is profitable, particularly with local markets taking delivery of canola and it being in high demand globally.  

Canada still leads the world in canola and rapeseed exports, according to a January 2024 report from Left Field Commodity Research. It exported 7 million tons of canola in 2023-2024, followed by about half of that amount from both Australia and Ukraine.  

According to a 2022 report from the Northwest Ag Research Center with Montana State University, Montana produced 180,000 acres of canola that year.   

There is a growing demand for canola to be used to make biodiesel, according to the PNW Canola Association, in addition to a need for cooking oil and animal feed.  

However, there has been recent growing discourse around the health and safety of oils derived from seeds, like canola. Though the medical community largely rejects these claims, they’ve been recently repeated by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as NPR reported in June that he said seed oils like canola are poisoning Americans, causing chronic inflammation. 

Sowers and others have been pushing back on these claims. On the U.S. Canola Association’s website, there is a fact sheet listing the health benefits of canola oil. The American Heart Association lists canola as an oil that provides healthy fats, versus saturated and trans fats.  

BEYOND NATIONAL politics, there are practical challenges to growing canola. Sowers said the seed is extremely delicate, very wispy and can be hard to get started for new canola farmers.  

Koch said there are other general economic challenges to farming these days. Including costs of equipment, irrigation, spraying and most of all, fertilizer — there is a high risk, high reward side to agriculture.  

“I'm spending a quarter of a million dollars to hopefully make maybe $50,000 and odds are, just the reality that something will happen and I’ll probably make closer to $30,000, you know?” Koch said. 

Surviving these high inputs includes a careful strategy of diversifying crops, he said. But it’s especially hard to think about a new farmer starting in Northwest Montana, where many of the fields available to be leased have been claimed, and real estate prices have skyrocketed. Moving large farm equipment presents a challenge when road systems aren’t designed to accommodate traffic and wide loads.  

But all in all, Koch considers canola, and farming in general, a worthy endeavor.  

Though canola is relatively resilient, there are still factors, particularly in the Flathead Valley, that affect its growth.  

Northwest Agricultural Research Center Agronomist Joseph Jensen said the valley’s higher amount of rainfall provides some benefits but can lead to a higher chance of developing disease, mainly fungal infections. This is compared to the Golden Triangle, the area of north-central Montana known for its wheat production, which has a drier climate.  

Fewer farms also mean fewer opportunities to market crops as compared to other parts of the state. And fewer options for rotational crops can open up the protentional for disease. 

Despite challenges, canola remains a popular choice for farmers here. Even though the wheat market can move up and down, canola has remained pretty constant. 

The Montana Department of Agriculture recently sent out ballots for farmers on a proposed voluntary canola checkoff program, which would fund efforts to help grow the canola industry and Montana-specific research projects. The estimated revenue based on current production figures will be approximately $265,000 annually.  

The demand for canola far outpaces U.S. supply, so there is always a strong demand for the crop, according to the U.S. Canola Association. 

“The price of canola has held pretty well, and it can end up functioning as a cash crop or something that you can pretty consistently pay the bills or net a profit with,” Jensen said. “You look at futures and long-term price outlooks, it's always been a stable crop price-wise." 

Reporter Taylor Inman may be reached at 758-4440 or tinman@dailyinterlake.com.    

    A closeup of flowering canola off of Steel Bridge Road. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    Ryan Krueger and his son Caleb harvest canola for Missing Horn Ranch along Montford Road in this file photo. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    A red-winged blackbird flies over a canola field in this Daily Inter Lake file photo. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake.)
  

    Tryg Koch with Heritage Farms shows the part of the canola plant that will turn into a pod, later pressed to make oil. (Taylor Inman/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    Tryg Koch observes one of his canola fields off of Rose Crossing in Kalispell on June 19, 2025. (Taylor Inman/Daily Inter Lake.)
  

    Brad Birch with Montana Ag shows a cabbage seedpod weevil. (Taylor Inman/Daily Inter Lake.)
  

    Brad and Jamie Birch with Montana Ag make their rounds in Kalispell on June 19, 2025. The crop advisors are looking for pests in this canola crop. (Taylor Inman/Daily Inter Lake.)