Mannix Ranch receives Stewardship Award

HELMVILLE– The Mannix Brothers Ranch in Helmville received the 2022 Montana Stockgrowers Environmental Stewardship Award from the Montana Stockgrowers Association. Each year the ESAP award recognizes a Montana ranch that exemplifies environmental stewardship and demonstrates a commitment toward improved sustainability within the beef industry.

"The Mannix family has continued the 140-year tradition of the Mannix Brothers Ranch by diversifying their enterprise and making decisions to benefit their family, land and wildlife," said Jim Steinbeisser, MSGA President. "We are excited to showcase them as our 2022 award winners as a way to showcase how Montana cattle producers benefit the landscape, wildlife and local communities. While the program highlights industry stewardship, it also provides cattlemen with examples and ideas which may be useful on their own farming and ranching operations."

According to the Montana Stockgrowers Association, Montana ranchers depend on the land and its resources for their livelihood. Therefore, good management demands that producers care for the environment for their own well-being as well as for future generations. Ranchers, as individuals and as an industry, are actively working to protect and improve the environment because they know environmental stewardship and good business go hand-in-hand. 

"Environmental Stewardship Award winners are prime examples of how environmental management benefits both the rancher's bottom line and the resources in their care," said Steinbresser.

The Environmental Stewardship Award was established in 1991 as a way to showcase ranchers who are demonstrating improved sustainability within the beef industry in Montana.

Mannix Brothers was nominated by Wayne Slaght of Two Creek Cattle Company in Ovando. This year six ranches were nominated.

Together, the Mannix family manages a diversified ranching business comprising a cow-calf program, stocker program, timber entity, direct-to-consumer grass-finished beef program and a recently opened restaurant.

"We are grateful to be considered for this special award. We are fortunate for the support and guidance from parents and grandparents who have instilled a sense of love of the land in our generation and our children," said Randy Mannix at the award ceremony June 2. "We are fortunate that our kids have taken that action and stewardship to the next level in the form of grazing, intensive grazing, marketing, stockmanship and forestry just to name a few."

 Mannix continued, "We have received help from many partners in our watershed like US Fish and Wildlife, Trout Unlimited, Blackfoot Challenge, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and Natural Resource and Conservation Service. These partnerships demonstrate that we can have fisheries values and Ag values coexisting. This recognition gives incentives to producers to practice good stewardship and to share. By sharing we can gain the trust of the public that also values these resources."

As winners, the Mannix Brothers will be hosting the 2023 "Raising the Steaks Ranch Tour." The tour focuses on conservationists, educators, chefs and foodies and introduces them to what it takes to run a ranch in Montana. During the tour, there will be stops around the ranch that highlight the conservation and stewardship efforts of the Mannix Brothers Ranch.

"The purpose of the tour is to learn and grow and really educate people about the stewardship efforts that ranches that are flourishing in Montana embrace and use on their land," said Jeri Delys, Montana Stockgrowers Association, "I believe that ranchers are our nation's first conservationists, they have to be. If they're not good stewards of the land, they go broke."

To learn more about the Mannix Ranch visit https://www.mannixbeef.com/