Turner ranchers honored by MSU College of Ag

Max and Kirsti Cederberg, owners of the Hot Rod Ranch of Turner, have been named one of two 2015 Outstanding Agricultural Leaders.

The award is presented annually by Montana State University‘s College of Agriculture and the Montana Experiment Stations.

Lola Raska, executive vice president of the Montana Grain Growers Association was the other winner.

The public is invited to congratulate the recipients at a Montana-made breakfast to be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, in MSU’s South Gym of the Marga Hosaeus Fitness Center.

The Cederbergs were cited for their continued support of the Northern Agricultural Research Center in Havre. Max Cederberg’s great-uncle, homesteaded the ranch they farm in 1928.

The family’s property and agricultural legacy has been a long-standing source of leadership and support for the agricultural community in the tri-county area of Hill, Blaine and Phillips counties, an MSU press release said.

NARC officials said Max’s father, Leon, was one of the first producers along the Hi-Line to experiment with growing diverse crops such as safflower, rapeseed and buckwheat, which prompted the Cederberg farm to host an off-station research site with crops not typically produced in the area, beginning in 1982.

Max married Kirsti in 1988 and began managing the family farm in Turner in 1994.

NARC officials said the Cederbergs’ on-farm research site provided some of the most influential research that was performed and used in NARC’s effort to increase yield and protein content in wheat for farmers along the Hi-Line and across the state of Montana, officials with NARC said.

Raska, a Plentywood native, was given the tribute because of her years of work as a wheat farmer in the Belt area and as an agriculture advocate.