Our Coverage from the 105th Annual Montana Farm Bureau Convention

If you're worried about "climate change"- don't blame Montana cattle producers. In fact, you should be THANKING Montana farmers and ranchers. We had a great lineup of folks to talk to during the 105th Annual Convention for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation.

We started Tuesday morning with Nicole Rolf, the Senior Director of Government Affairs for the Montana Farm Bureau. She talked about state and federal policy decisions Farm Bureau members would be discussing, from property taxes to water issues. We also talked about the outgoing Biden Administration's "Public Lands Rule," which hopefully be halted by the inbound Trump Administration. No use is basically the preferred use under the Biden Public Lands Rule, as Wyoming Senator John Barrasso pointed out recently at an event in Billings with Senator-elect Tim Sheehy (R-MT).

Speaking of Senator-elect Tim Sheehy, we caught up with him as well. Click here for that coverage.

Gina Stevens is an accountant in Hardin who sits on the state tax committee for the Montana Farm Bureau. She wanted to alert famers and ranchers about the new BOI form requirement under FINCEN. This new federal requirement doesn't just apply potentially to farmers and ranchers, but to anyone who has an LLC for their business. If you don't file this form with the feds, you could face a $500 per day fine no matter how small your business is.

All of those conversations can be heard in more depth below along with the Deputy General Counsel for the American Farm Bureau Federation. 

We also got to catch up with Dr. Frank Mitloehner. He is a professor and air quality specialist in cooperative extension in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis.

Are American beef producers to blame for emissions? 

Dr. Frank Mitloehner: "We are producing 18%- one, eight- 18% of all beef globally here in the United States. 18%- and we are doing that with 6% of the global beef herd. That just tells you something about efficiencies. We are world champions in that."

Whether you agree with the climate activists or not, what if your customers are asking for a lower carbon footprint? How can ranchers going about making that argument? 

Dr. Frank Mitloehner: "There are ways of reducing methane, and that's the main greenhouse gas from animal agriculture, via manure management. There are ways to do it via feeding, via breeding, many of which- many of those tools have been used for a long time. But, you know, let's say better breeding or so. But now we are breeding not just for yields and so on, but we can breed for low methane as well. And by doing so, have more efficient animals that produce less of this gas."