GLENDIVE – His farm truck bed is edged with a rind of rust and the frost bitten air needs thawing, but as Alvin Hoff unloads his harvest of dark red beans, he feels the heft of what he hopes are the seeds to farming’s future.

“I’m always willing to try something different,” Hoff said. “I’ve always put in experimental beans, soldier beans, heirlooms. I’ve put in beans the Mandan Indians raised, good quality.”

To Hoff, these beans are seeds of hope. Discouraged by a global farm economy offering profit margins as thin as 3 percent, Hoff is trying something that hasn’t been done in these parts for decades. He’s raising food for his neighbors, for the local school lunch program and Montanans wanting to know from where their food comes.

The townies call this emerging trend farm-to-table. Farmers like Hoff call it a second chance at feeding the state, which Montana farmers once did well.

There was a time when 70 percent of what Montanans ate was produced in state. They grew watermelons in Whitehall, green peas in Bozeman, apricots in Corvallis, beans in Glendive, all for commercial sale. Now there’s a push to return to those days by farmers and consumers who say farm profits would be better and so would the healthfulness of the food we eat.

But it’s been so long since Montana fed itself, the burning question is whether it still can.

“Montana was a net exporter of processed foods and vegetables, and of course that was canned, but the state had the infrastructure to deal with a surplus of processed food,” said Nancy Matheson, who oversees commodity development for the state Agriculture Department. “Cantaloupes were raised in Circle, green peas were raised in Gallatin Valley. Turkeys were raised in Park County. Cheese and other dairy products were raised across the state. And we grew enough to export them. We served other markets.”

In 1947 more than 4,000 Montanans drew paychecks from the 200-plus canneries, dairies, slaughterhouses and mills processing Montana food. Those companies as a group were one of the state’s largest employers, Matheson said.

That all changed in the 1950s with the massive expansion of the federal interstate highway system and the arrival of powerful, diesel-engine trucks. The trucks, initially designed for carry troops, rumbled into American life from the military factories of World War II. Behind them they towed refrigerated trailers, developed for hauling food to soldiers without spoiling.

Before the war, it was nearly impossible to haul food more than 50 miles. Trailers were cooled with ice and when the ice melted, food quickly spoiled.

After the war, fruit and vegetable states like California began shipping not only fresh produce across the country, but also frozen food, also perfected as part of the war effort. Food only seasonally available when grown in Montana was suddenly imported and available year round.