The photo above is of a high mountain pasture in the southern Big Horns, this past November. There's still snow on it now, and it'll get more before summer arrives there.
To those who imagine themselves to be hardcore environmentalist, this is a nearly pristine wilderness. To sportsmen, this is elk habitat. To those who like ATVs, there's a road not too far away which makes this prime roading (or whatever the term would be) country. To fishermen, it's a mountain spot between streams. It's all these things, because it is a high mountain pasture. Agriculture keeps it that way.
In yesterday's tribune the Governor, in a special section, noted that agriculture is the third biggest industry in the state, behind mineral exploration and tourism, and he stated that agriculture "supports the other two". I don't agree with him that agriculture "supports" mineral extraction so much as I feel they live side by side, uncomfortably, but agriculture surely does support tourism. Without agriculture here we'd have much less of it, as there'd be much less wild land to view.
Still, it's become, as often noted, a hard way to make a living in the state. At some point in the 1950s, or maybe the 1940s, it became nearly impossible to really take it up as a vocation here if you weren't born into it. In recent years, it's tended to be people with vast wealth, usually outsiders, who purchased working ranches intact, if they did. Rarely it was a local, but if it was, it was probably somebody who was quite wealthy.
This isn't a good trend. I've written on it before, but its in our human interest to keep real farmers and ranchers on the land and in our society. And its certainly in the interest of our wildlands.
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