Most people have seen or heard of the hit TV show “Yellowstone” that airs on the Paramount Network. Admittedly, I have watched the show. It is set in picturesque Montana and packed with drama, lots of action and overly-fictionalized storylines around a ranching family trying to keep together the generational ranch that has been passed down to them.
This show is hard to watch if you are involved in production agriculture for the many incorrect portrayals of ranching practices and the over-the-top daily issues faced by this fictional family. However, it seems to be resonating with the public and is causing an influx of people wishing to move to the Big Sky state. The “Yellowstone effect” is real in Montana, and we have seen population growth and skyrocketing demand for real estate.
It’s no secret that the pandemic changed work dynamics, and the ability for employees to work remotely resulted in people moving away from areas with a high cost of living to more affordable locations around the country. Montana saw a huge demand increase for property. For example, in Bozeman, where the storyline of “Yellowstone” is based, the median price for a single-family home was a mere $500,000 a few short years ago.
This summer, it was released that the same single-family home median price shot up to $860,000! You can imagine the pressure it has put on agricultural land. It has forced out many long-time producers and left the ones in that area to deal with an ever-increasing challenge of public encroachment and the challenges that go with a higher population.
The sad fact of this is that a lot of good farm ground, some of the most productive in the state, is being taken out of crop or livestock production and is instead being planted with houses: a net agriculture loss we will not be able to recover from.
This is not unique to Bozeman, or even Montana for that matter. Ranch prices have gone through the roof. Outside money and investors are gobbling up ranches and farm ground. Looking at Montana in particular, the median listing price per acre has increased nearly 30 percent since 2020, with the price per acre increasing from $1,800 to $2,375. It is going to be hard for this land to pencil out based solely on agriculture production value alone.
Organizations like the American Prairie (formerly the American Prairie Reserve, or APR) have taken a renewed interest. Public ground that has benefited from the multiple-use mandate and management of livestock operations has seen changes along with ranch sales, and it seems like the current administration is more willing to make shortsighted changes to appease these groups.
Seeing ranches being purchased and having cattle or production removed is very concerning to me. Like I covered in a prior column, we need to reverse this trend and provide incentives to get the next generation of farmers and ranchers on this ground. It’s a matter of national security to maintain a stable domestic food supply, in my opinion.
Beyond land changing hands domestically, from those who simply want to move out of the cities or purchase the ranch to recreate or hunt on, I am very concerned about the prospect of many of our acres being purchased by foreign-owned entities or individuals.
China is the obvious one to point a finger at. There is a lot of talk about money pouring in from China to purchase farmland. But we are also seeing foreign money coming into play in other areas. For example, many of the donors to American Prairie are from Europe, and they are sending money over by the truckload, believing they are doing something good in the effort to restore bison and make an American Serengeti where cattle and rural communities once flourished. Don’t think this model can’t be implemented elsewhere once they achieve their goal in Montana.
Though I personally do not know any ranches who take people to the “train station,” and I am not familiar with ones who brand more than their own livestock (a “Yellowstone” reference for those of you not familiar with the show), I do know that many ranchers deal with barrage of issues that are overly dramatized on that show. The real-life challenges with weather, markets, activists, family dynamics, labor, etc. are very real.
It worries me that so much of this land is threatened to be purchased under the allure of a fictionalized television show, and it may go out of production. This is a huge concern to me and one that I think may come back to haunt us in the future. In the meantime, I hope that the hard-working agriculturists out there continue to produce some of the highest quality commodities that this world has ever known. And please continue to pray for moisture in those areas so badly in need of it. — DEVIN MURNIN
