Agriculture
Mixed reactions in Montana to Trump’s $12 billion aid for farmers
Latest AG Reporting
Fort Peck’s vision for ‘endless’ buffalo prairie
Taking a page from studies in Yellowstone National Park and the Blackfeet Reservation, Fort Peck is joining Montana groups and seeking to quantify value of bison grazing through biodiversity credit program
Montana-grown ingredients for your Thanksgiving spread
With nearly 24,000 farms and ranches operating in Montana, the state’s residents are pitching in to produce a wide variety of food — from beef to chickpeas — for consumers around the world. With Thanksgiving around the corner, here are five Montana-made foods that you can add to your festivities.
A morning at one of the state’s busiest cattle auctions
In mid-October, cattle prices surpassed $4 per pound — their highest point in decades, according to Joe Goggins, whose family owns of the Billings Livestock Commission and Public Auction Yard, another facility in Billings.
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Thousands of pounds of pork bound for Montana food banks following feral swine investigation
In late September, Wildlife Services alerted the Montana Department of Livestock to a potential feral swine issue involving about 100 animals in Phillips County, and the state began trapping the animals and delivered them to a nonprofit meat-processing facility shortly thereafter. The animals are now expected to provide a bounty of pork for food banks…
Montana still has more cows than people, but the cows’ lead is narrowing
Montana’s famous cow-to-person ratio has narrowed a bit. U.S. Department of Agriculture data from early 2024 shows 2.12 million cattle roaming the state alongside 1.14 million people. That’s still nearly two cows for every Montanan, but it’s down from the more dramatic ratios of years past. As recently as 2022, the ratio was more than…
Water expected to return to the Milk River 12 months after pipeline failure
The Milk River Project, a critical irrigation artery along Montana’s Hi-Line that’s been dry for a year, is expected to return to service months ahead of schedule. Project managers are cautiously talking about restarting the siphon that feeds the system by late June, around the one-year anniversary of an infrastructure blowout that left more than…
Montana ag producers expect challenges with Trump’s new tariffs
In the beef business, a cow can be born in Montana and cross the Canadian border twice before it’s processed. Tariffs both ways could make that an expensive cow.
Trends and policy the focus of MSU agricultural economics conference
The conference, part of MSU’s Celebrate Agriculture Week, has been held for 18 years and provides an opportunity to discuss agricultural trends and policy ideas relevant to Montana. Twelve presenters, most of them MSU economics professors, delivered lectures and presented their research.
Why it takes a crisis to trigger funding for Montana’s largest irrigation project
The rivets were still popping from the seams of the St. Mary siphon when Jennifer Patrick started crunching the numbers for repairing the century-old system that 18,000 residents of Montana’s Hi-Line depend on for water. It would take 3,600 feet of pipe so big men can walk through it without bumping their heads. They would…
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‘Land is kin’: Old Salt Festival celebrates local food and open landscapes
It’s a rarity these days for ranchers to see people eating the animals they raise. In the conventional U.S. agricultural market, most ranchers sell livestock to out-of-state feedlots and can’t track where the meat is ultimately sold. Just 5% of cattle raised in Montana are processed here. Some Montanans are trying to change that.
What do Montana’s independent ranchers need to survive? Customers.
Just four companies process 85% of American beef, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Though the consolidation has long affected ranchers, it wasn’t until the pandemic — when the industry made headlines with bottlenecks, price hikes and COVID-19 outbreaks among workers — that the general public noticed. Even the White House got involved, pledging…
Tester introduces bipartisan bill to deregulate industrial hemp
In late March, Sens. Jon Tester, D-Montana, and Mike Braun, R-Indiana, introduced the Industrial Hemp Act, which would loosen testing restrictions and other regulations for varieties of hemp plants grown for industrial purposes, like fiber, grain, biofuel or “hempcrete.” Supporters say the act could lower barriers for farmers and boost production.
Missoula food group, area ranchers look to alleviate beef-processing bottleneck
Ranchers across the West often truck their cows hundreds of miles to meatpacking facilities that slaughter, butcher and package the meat for sale. The highway miles add financial burden to an industry that already struggles for economic sustainability.
Common Ground
Our three-part series reports on how Montanans are using organic and regenerative agriculture to revitalize rural economies and the soil they depend on.
BLM approves American Prairie Reserve’s bison grazing proposal
The Bureau of Land Management approved American Prairie Reserve’s application for grazing leases on 63,000 acres of BLM-administered land in Phillips County on July 28. The application became a lightning rod for opinions about both bison and APR, which aims to conserve prairie species by acquiring large private parcels and connecting them with tracts of…
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