Women-owned businesses are delivering the goods in Meagher County

Montana's rural Mar County has become known for grassroots entrepreneurship and growth, according to new research. MTPR's Victoria Traxler has more. Just a few degrees left of Montana's center sits Marr County. Martinsdale-based farmer and mother Shauna Eagleton lives here, but spends a lot of time on the road. We start and stop our day in Martinsdale. Our first day goes through Bozeman, big timber, and then back up, so we kind of do a big circle. through here, and then our second day comes through Harlotin and up to Lewistown. She and her small team pick up local orders of produce, meat, and dairy, and drop them off with customers far and wide who would otherwise lack access to local, high-quality foods. You know, why don't the grocery stores have fresh food? Okay, well, they're the end of the line. They're really... at the whim of what is available to them. And it's not their fault, that it's not fresh. It's about a 500-mile route Eagleton drives weekly for part of the year. Walmart County has the goods, it lacks distribution systems and other services that help businesses function. To be a profitable farm, you really do have to grow enough and sell enough. And to make that work, you need a distribution network, and we don't have one. In response, Eagleton scaled up to running Delphine Farms and the Central Montana Food Hub. The hub functions as an aggregator and online marketplace for local food products. It also offers distribution services to other farms and ranches and customers in the area. And they're growing. The hub will soon have a high-tech food storage facility located in Harlotin. A study from the University of Montana's Real Co-Lab identified strong themes in Marr County that make growth like this possible. Local entrepreneurship thrives, but so does education, volunteerism, and community engagement. The study also highlights 77% of local businesses are owned by women, like Shawna Eagleton. Reporting from White Sulfur Springs, I'm Victoria Traxler. This is MTBR.