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Farm report: Montana to lose millions to climate change
Posted by Billings Gazette: Tom Lutey on February 25th, 2016
Billings Gazette: Montana agriculture losses to climate change could total $736 million a year, estimates an economic study prepared for Montana Farmers Union.
Warmer temperatures and drier summers are withering the future of Montana spring wheat, a major cash crop for state farmers, according to the report released Wednesday.
Over time, those changing conditions will cost the state $372 million on labor earnings due to 12,167 jobs lost to declined production. Range land losses due to dry conditions and changing...
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Eastern Montana farmers’ ability to manage soil key as climate changes
Posted by Billings Gazette: Tom Lutey on August 5th, 2012
Billings Gazette: On an afternoon when the air presses against his face like a hot iron, Mitch Auer grabs a shovel from his pickup and lumbers into an old wheat stand that hasn’t seen 3 inches of moisture this year.
It’s the last day in July and the National Weather Service has just confirmed that Yellowstone County is experiencing one of its hottest summers ever. A couple of weeks earlier, the same meteorologists were declaring the first six months of the 2012 the county’s driest on record. The misery in farm...