A Taste of Home: Comparing Montana’s Agricultural Makeup vs. South Carolina’s

Guest post by Clemson student Maddison Tankersley

Agriculture is one of the most important practices throughout the United States today. Growing up and currently I am constantly around agriculture. When I was a young kid, my grandparents had a very small-scale farm, I rode horses most of my life, I was a very active member and president of my FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter and even currently work alongside cows for my summer internship. Even though I may be a wildlife major I like to consider agriculture my first love and the driving factor to where I am in life today. Being in Montana and seeing the way agriculture shapes their landscape really has shown me how different it is from agriculture back in my home state of South Carolina.

Throughout my time here these past couple of days we have seen a numerous amount of agricultural businesses and family-owned ranches. From businesses like the Judith Basin Stockgrowers and The Yellowstone Feed Lots and family-owned ranches like the one we are currently staying on The Frosty Creek Angus Ranch. Touring these places and experiencing what they do was such a shocking new experience to me even with my agricultural background. When I first think about Montana “agriculture” large-scale ranches and farms are not what comes to mind. I immediately ask the question of: “How in the world do you keep cows alive in the snow?” While there is no direct answer to that question because cows have a mind of their own a simple answer can be the years of experience and technological advancements that we have seen. One of my fellow classmates found a quote in the newspaper in Lewistown, Montana that really stuck and resonated with me. It states “Your farmland is like your great father’s pocketknife” – J.W. Thompson. When you think of something as special as your grandfather’s pocketknife it is such a precious heirloom that you would never want to even put in jeopardy of misplacing or damaging it. After speaking to ranchers in Montana they view this farmland like an heirloom they must protect and manage. Which can be a lot for only a couple of people to do. One surprising statistic is that there are more cows in Northeastern Montana then their population of people. That is utterly insane compared to the cattle business in South Carolina.

While there are many similarities between South Carolina and Montana agriculture like the idea of treating your farm like a family heirloom. I have noticed some dramatic changes, especially coming from some of my personal experiences and someone who works with the Pineywoods Cattle Breed. I come from a heavily agriculturally based school, I have friends who have family farms and a college who has a sheep farm, cattle farm, poultry center, and equine center. What is different from the South Carolina side compared to the Montana side is the sheer factor of size. We do everything in South Carolina at such a smaller scale compared to these large-scale operations I have seen recently in Montana. Through my experience with the Pineywoods cattle breed they are a primarily self-sufficient breed of cattle that habituate in Longleaf Pine ecosystems. That is something you will never see in Montana due the number of prairies and their not so impressive amount of tree species. One thing that really shocked me was seeing the size of the Angus cows here it’s almost alarming they look like huge bowling balls with legs and head. 

Agriculture is such an important and emerging practice that has been in our United States for a numerous amount of years. One of the most important takeaways of this section I have learned is that no matter where you are agriculture is all around you whether that be the low country swamp and longleaf pine forests of South Carolina or the frigid prairie winters in Montana. At the end of the day remember this as it is from one of my favorite professors at Clemson, Dr. Kirby Player: “No matter where you are in the world always, always, always be an Ag-Evangelist”.