GREAT FALLS — Montana’s agricultural community is facing a growing rift over the impact of newly implemented tariffs, with producers split on whether the measures will bolster or burden the industry.
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Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF USA, supports the tariffs as a long-overdue measure to protect domestic producers, particularly in the beef and sheep sectors.
“We have long advocated for tariffs on beef, cattle, sheep, and lamb in order to provide our domestic industry the opportunity to begin rebuilding,” said Bullard. “We’ve lost over 60% of our sheep producers and about 9 million head of cattle. Meanwhile, beef and lamb consumption continues to rise.”
Bullard argues that increasing reliance on foreign imports has severely weakened the U.S. livestock industry, calling it a national security issue.
He said, “Over 70% of the lamb consumed in America is now imported, mostly from Australia and New Zealand. These products are produced under lesser safety and production standards than ours. We need to consume more of what we produce and produce more of what we consume.”
But not all Montana producers agree.
John Wicks, a lentil farmer with Tiber Ridge Organics, sees the tariffs as a major obstacle for growers seeking global markets.
“The Montana Department of Agriculture, wheat and barley growers—everyone’s been working for decades to expand trade, not limit it,” Wicks said. “In 2025, I was trying to contract my lentils, but the American companies were behind the market due to the high tariffs. A 25% tariff on a high-dollar crop like organic lentils made U.S. contracts slow and less competitive.”
Wicks also pointed out that tariffs intended to boost domestic meat sales, like those against Brazil, may not address the right markets. “That’s not necessarily where we want to cut off trade. We like to export beef to China, not block it.”
The disagreement underscores a broader challenge facing U.S. agriculture: how to balance fair competition, international trade, and the viability of local producers held to higher standards.
With different commodities experiencing unique pressures, the debate over tariffs is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
