The state often appears in stories about agriculture in precarious environments (See Jared Diamond's "Collapse" for one example.)
Montana is largely a semi-arid desert, especially over the 2/3's of the state that are northern Great Plains. East of the continental divide, it gets about 10" of rain per year, which is about a quarter of the US average.
And with climate change, it is more precarious. Temperatures have been unusually high this summer, and it's fire season now. Weather has become more volatile. (Cherry crops on the Flathead have been destroyed two of the last three years.)
This is true. One of the regenerative crop types are pulses (lentils, chick peas), and MT produces a lot.
https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/pulse-info/resources-pdf/Growing...
The state often appears in stories about agriculture in precarious environments (See Jared Diamond's "Collapse" for one example.)
Montana is largely a semi-arid desert, especially over the 2/3's of the state that are northern Great Plains. East of the continental divide, it gets about 10" of rain per year, which is about a quarter of the US average.
And with climate change, it is more precarious. Temperatures have been unusually high this summer, and it's fire season now. Weather has become more volatile. (Cherry crops on the Flathead have been destroyed two of the last three years.)