Climate change will cost Montana agriculture more than 9,000 job losses, $181M, report says
A classic view of the Mission Mountains. (Jim Black/Pixabay)
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.
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