Partnerships and Profitability in Rural Montana

By Yogesh Simpson, 10-26-07

	Caption: Hank Goetz of the Blackfoot Challenge on the big screen at the NewWest.Net Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference.

As more and more of the rural West is consumed by development what are the biggest challenges to maintaining traditional uses and providing opportunities for the next generation of farmers and ranchers?

This was the difficult question posed to a panel of farmers, ranchers and land managers Friday at the second annual Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference in Missoula.

“I see the biggest challenge as trying to maintain the working landscapes in the valley,” said Hank Goetz of the pioneering land management cooperative the Blackfoot Challenge. “The other factor that we really haven’t begun to deal with is the affordable housing part of it—for the young people and the young families in the valley.”

Goetz spoke of the importance of partnership in achieving meaningful conservation goals and working with all the stakeholders in an area that is seeing an influx of out-of-towners building expensive homes.

“New folks bring in disposable income and political connections,” said Goetz. “You get those two groups moving in the same direction and you have a pretty powerful coalition.”

Dutton farmer and rancher Brett DeBruycker is facing a markedly different set of circumstances in eastern Montana. He has four girls, and says there’s no one for them to go to school with. “The town is drying up,” he said.

DeBruycker said staying profitable is a constant struggle and in some cases conservation efforts such as the Conservation Reserve Program have only made it harder for those who want to farm and ranch to buy land.

On the other end of the economic spectrum Joshua Spitzer described the efforts of the Sun Ranch Institute, the nonprofit arm of the Sun Ranch Group which manages over 19,000 acres of rangeland in the Madison Valley of Montana. The land was bought by a wealthy investor and includes a limited number of residential lots.

“We need our cattle operations to break even,” said Spitzer. “But the real economic engine here is the development.”

For the average landowner looking to protect property from development, there are not few options. Wendy Ninteman of the Five Valleys Land Trust would like to see that change.

“As I think about the challenges I think about the need for more tools and really thinking holistically,” said Ninteman. “We really concentrate on conservation easements and until recently that has been a really limiting choice.”