20 Questions About Climate Change - What are farmers and ranchers doing about climate change?

Global agriculture uses 37% of all land, 70% of fresh water, and contributes 22% to 34% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). This translates to a tangible impact from hardworking families like those in our community.

"Simply put, no other ecosystem or human artifact can match the geographic footprint of agriculture," says Jonathan Foley of Drawdown.org.

In Montana, 62% of the state’s land is agricultural, according to the Department of Agriculture, with 58.1 million acres in farms and ranches. That puts us second in the nation.

Working in agriculture means dealing with weather risk, or "battling with Mother Nature," as rancher Bruce Kessler put it, adding that drought occurs "almost annually now." Weather is also more extreme, say local agrarians Sam Armstrong and Doug Weist. In speaking with seasoned farmers, Armstrong finds "they all say they’ve not seen weather like this before - wind so strong, snowpack so low, extremely hot and dry."

Agrarians face unprecedented challenges in a time of necessary climate mitigation, and their work is critical due to GHGs such as CO2 from machinery; methane from rice, food waste, and ruminants; and nitrous oxide from fertilizer. It’s this combination that draws investors to pinpoint agriculture as an industry of focus for more sustainable practices and carbon sequestration efforts.

Farmers in our community are already implementing solutions such as pulse crops and no-till to retain soil moisture and nutrients. Weist says many are covering more ground and narrowing row spacing to manage heat. Weist and Armstrong are also working with non-traditional crops, like hemp, to support emerging markets, with batt and foam insulation made from its fibers as example.

In the future, Armstrong aspires to integrate animals with crops to help with pricing flux. He also seeks innovative ways to pull nitrogen from the air to apply in soil. He’d like local manure to be more affordable too. Weist mentioned biochar, a soil amendment, noting that it could potentially complement hemp. The production process could even generate electricity.

Clearly, proactive creativity is at play.

A comprehensive climate plan includes smart soil management, sustainable agriculture and carbon farming, says Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist. Weist agrees.

"As farmers, we are plugged into the soil, and we have a big opportunity to grow different crops to create carbon sinks."

Weist engages with carbon credits, or trading carbon storage from farming to big tech companies and airlines willing to pay to lower their emissions.

All of this innovation happens in spite of a constant water shortage, which all three agriculturalists mentioned as a concern. "Every year there is less and less water," says Kessler, explaining that drought has an outsized impact on hay production and pasture.

Separate from climate, yet complicating everyday realities, is the challenge of farms getting bigger in order to generate enough profit around lowered crop pricing. Armstrong mentioned the gap between commodity pricing and inflation. Weist says competitive advantage comes from increasing volume or margin, which means going bigger, translating to difficulty for smaller farms.

Then there’s fertilizer, which "everyone hates," says Weist. Manure is less environmentally impactful yet costly. To improve efficiency and sustainability, Weist provides a selective spray technology for weed control, reporting that it reduces herbicide use by 90% and potentially supports healthier soil nutrients.

Things are trickier on the ranching side, which Andrew Bardwell, a local ranch manager explained. Whereas global farming solutions are readily leveraged in Montana, many of the ranching alternatives don’t fit.

The obstacle is that cows and other ruminants have a large climate footprint. Globally, beef produces 100 kilograms of GHGs per each kilogram of food. As a comparison, chickens produce 10 kilograms and fruits and veggies produce 1 kilogram, says Hayhoe.

Those statistics raise Andrew Bardwell’s hackles, who says that they "couple Montana ranching with Brazil and rainforest depletion." His objective is, instead, caring for the soil by "maximizing what the land will produce."

Global climate solutions for cattle often involve four things: methane reduction via variants in cattle feed, manure management, halting land-use changes - like from rainforests to farmland - and addressing the inefficiencies in the food chain. We waste between 30% and 60% of our food, which means that we need to grow 50% more than necessary.

Bardwell says no one in our community needs manure management, and that such a fix would instead benefit more populated areas with higher concentrations of feedlots.

He adds that, in Montana, it’s much more about protecting the soil. His focus is around carbon sequestration by nurturing pasture lands. He reported that sustainability methods are often costly and labor-intensive, especially putting cattle in daily rotation. Water is a limiting factor too, requiring piping to better utilize grass.

His logic is supported by Michael Mann, scientist and author of The New Climate War, who says, "We don’t need to ban burgers; we need climate-friendly beef. To spur these changes, we need to put a price on carbon, to incentivize polluters to invest in these solutions."

Kessler feels good about feeding a hungry world. When you think about the number of people on Earth, it makes sense to support the agrarian community. Weist says farmers are "fighting climate change every day," and advocates for "taking climate out of it," meaning that it’s not really about climate change and instead finding ways in which "we can all do better."

That’s absolutely the idea. Our farms and ranches produce formidable harvests. Climate change poses a threat and creates an opportunity to adjust practices to help future generations. As with everything else, the best solutions will be local, and come from those most connected to the land. Our community has an impressive start.