A wheat field in Montana (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan).
A new report about the impacts of climate change on Montana’s agricultural community shows that changes to the environment could have an outsized impact on the state’s rural agricultural communities, as weather patterns will likely make it harder to raise wheat and cattle, Montana’s two mainstays.
The report, “The Economic Impact of Climate Change on Montana Agriculture,” was prepared for Farm Connect Montana by Power Consulting, and released publicly on Thursday. It showed a shifting weather pattern that suggests by mid-century, spring and autumn will get more mild, the winters will get more rainy and the summers could be brutally hot.
While this sounds like a mixed-bag of weather patterns, the end result will mean that it could be harder to produce the crops that Montana has historically built its agricultural economy around. However, agricultural leaders could also change some of the practices to mitigate the worst aspects of climate change.
The report studied what Montana’s agricultural picture would look like if leaders kept a “business as usual” approach, coupled with the best data on the weather changes. Experts forecast that the average temperatures will continue to increase, on average by 6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050. That means temperatures across the board will get warmer, with moisture patterns becoming a little less predictable.
“This temperature increase will be greater in the winter and summer, with August seeing the largest projected change. Autumn through spring will be warmer and a little wetter, and spring and autumn will come earlier while summers will be hotter and drier,” the report said.
The details of that include the northwestern and north-central parts of Montana seeing 11 more days of temperatures above 90 degrees, while the rest of Montana could see 33 more days of temperatures above that level.
That has other implications for Montana’s beyond just the agricultural sector. For example, the report notes that all ski areas in Montana are expected to have 33 fewer ski days per season by mid-century.
Montana is projected to receive two more inches per year of rain, but an even greater number of “extreme weather events,” according to the report. While more moisture sounds good to many, it won’t be the same way Montana has traditionally experienced moisture — through a pattern of snowpack that gradually melts as winter turns to spring. Instead, much of that moisture will be through rain, which won’t have the benefit of gradually being released as the snow melts.
“The increased precipitation is not uniform over the different seasons: Autumn, winter, and spring will see increases in monthly precipitation, whereas summer will see a decrease in monthly precipitation,” the report said. “There will be an increase of about 50% in two-day heavy rainfall events by mid-century. Although fewer hail days are expected, a 40% increase in damage potential from hail results from an increased occurrence of large hail in the spring months. As winter warms, there will be more rain-on-snow-events, which leaves less snow in the mountains and changes the timing and intensity of the spring melt runoff.”
Translating that to farmers and ranchers, it means that more plant production could happen during the spring and less stress on cattle during the winter, but the lengthening of the summer season and the lack of moisture, including the rise in the number of “very hot days,” will put stress on plants and cattle.
“Water available for cattle and the rangeland during the summer season is predicted to decline with increased evaporation and evapotranspiration, adding to the stress on cattle and the rangeland,” the report said.
As temperatures rise, the report said that plant quality of foraging food for cattle will decrease, and be stunted by the summer’s heat. Moreover, the research indicates that the harsher weather could allow non-native invasive plants to take hold.
“The forage may not be as digestible or as nutritious,” the report said. “Nitrogen dietary supplements may have to be used, boosting operating costs and labor requirements. The high temperatures and high carbon dioxide concentrations will boost competition from left spurge and knapweed among other invasive species that are not valuable for forage. The productivity of rangeland will decline.”
The report predicts a 20% decline in rangeland cattle by the midcentury, and said that number is not just based on estimation because data from states farther south has already seen an identical trend as temperatures have increased.
“In New Mexico, there has already been a 20% decline in rangeland carrying capacity when comparing 1920-1976 with 1976-2017,” the report said. “We project that 4,514 cattle ranching jobs and more than $86 million in labor earning from cow and calf operations will be lost due to climate change by mid-century.”
Meanwhile, the report noted already shifting trends in Montana’s wheat production.
“Winter wheat yields will increase across the state for at least the next couple of decades while spring wheat yields will decline in all but two of the zones,” the report said. “In the long term, global wheat production falls significantly as temperature increases…The increased heat in the summer and autumn all but negates the increases in fertilization and moisture across the year.”
The report pointed out that Montana farmers were already beginning to respond to the change by rotating or adding different crops, including “pulse crops” like lentils and chickpeas that capture nitrogen and pulse it back into the fields, as a way of changing agricultural production as the climate changes.
The report estimates a loss of Montana grain crops of 20% by the mid-century, and says that wheat, barley and the hay sector comprises 76% of the agricultural sales in Montana currently.
“(The report) shows a loss of almost 5,000 wheat, barley and hay jobs and more than $95 million in labor earnings that would be lost to climate change by mid-century,” the report said.
In total, the report estimates more than 9,500 jobs lost and more than $181 million could be lost due to climate change in Montana by mid-century. The report notes that the decline in revenue and jobs continues an overall trend in the Treasure State.
“The relative importance of Montana’s farms and ranches as a direct source of jobs has been declining over the last two decades, from about 11% to about 7%,” the report said.
The report noted that Montana has already begun adapting to many of these changes, especially by adding the pulse crops which help add nitrogen back into the soil.
“Montana is the number-one producer of lentils, dry peas, and chickpeas, which are all nitrogen-fixing pulse crops,” the report said.
Bonnie Buckingham, the executive director of Farm Connect Montana, said that the organization commissioned the report for two reasons — first, to understand what’s happening in agriculture but to also prepare for the changes that are coming.
“I think we know and notice some of the changes of the weather, and we need to understand what effects those will have on agriculture,” she said. “Small communities rely on agriculture for their community’s economic viability. It’s not surprising that this report indicates there’ll be economic implications because of climate change.”
For example, she said Montana has already been adapting to the changing climate by adding more pulse crops. She said that Montana’s naturally innovative nature will hopefully help farmers and ranchers adapt. She said understanding and releasing the report now, as Congress still has yet to make a determination about the next Farm Bill, should guide the conversation.
“It’s important that we support agriculture at difference scales. We need the Farm Bill so that we can support our local agricultural communities,” Buckingham said. “There’s also an economic message: If we think about higher value crops in light of these changes, there are things that we can research and put our funding into.”
She said that although the term “climate change” is politically loaded and somewhat controversial, most farmers and ranchers understand that the weather patterns are changing in Montana and they’ve been adapting for some time.
“It’s not a denial that there are changes happening in the weather, it’s that we recognize that we need to adapt and prepare for these changes,” she said.
She also said that there’s political support for doing something about the climate change, even at the state level because many of the politicians who make up the Legislature come from rural communities that have agriculture as the economic backbone.
“There are going to be opportunities to talk about this, regardless of who is in office,” Buckingham said.