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By Root 1892 0

than a few decades ago. At those prices, carrying costs for a mortgage are far higher than could be paid by use of the land as a farm. That’s the immediate reason why small farmers in the Bitterroot can’t survive by expanding, and why the farms eventually become sold for non-farm use. If old farmers are still living on their farm when they die, their heirs are forced to sell the land to a developer for much more than it would fetch by sale to another farmer, in order to pay the estate taxes on the great increase in land value during the deceased farmer’s lifetime. More often, the farm is sold by the old farmers themselves. Much as they cringe at seeing the land that they have farmed and loved for 60 years subdivided into 5-acre lots of suburban sprawl, the rise in land prices lets them sell even a small formerly self-supporting farm to a developer for a million dollars. They have no other choice to obtain the money necessary to support themselves after retirement, because they have not been able to save money as farmers, and because their children don’t want to continue farming anyway. In Rick Laible’s words, “For a farmer, his land is his only pension fund.”

What accounts for the enormous jump in land prices? Basically, it’s because the Bitterroot’s gorgeous environment attracts wealthy newcomers. The people who buy out old farmers are either those new arrivals themselves, or else land speculators who will subdivide the farm into lots to sell to newcomers or to wealthy people already living in the valley. Almost all of the valley’s recent 4%-per-year population growth represents newcomers moving in from outside the valley, not an excess of births over deaths within the valley. Seasonal recreational tourism is also on the increase, thanks to out-of-staters (like Stan Falkow, Lucy Tompkins, and my sons) visiting to fly-fish, golf, or hunt. As a recent economic analysis commissioned by Ravalli County explains it, “There should be no mystery as to why so many residents are coming to the Bitterroot Valley. Simply put, it is a very attractive place to live with its mountains, forests, streams, wildlife, views and vistas, and relatively mild climate.”

The largest group of immigrants consists of “half-retirees” or early retirees in the age bracket 45-59, supporting themselves by real estate equity from their out-of-state homes that they sold, and often also by income that they continue to earn from their out-of-state businesses or Internet businesses. That is, their sources of support are immune to the economic problems associated with Montana’s environment. For example, a Californian who sells a tiny house in California for $500,000 can use that money in Montana to buy five acres of land with a large house and horses, go fishing, and support herself in her early retirement with savings and with what remains of her cashed-out California house equity. Hence nearly half of the recent immigrants to the Bitterroot have been Californians. Because they are buying Bitterroot land for its beauty and not for the value of the cows or apples that it could produce, the price that they are willing to offer for Bitterroot land bears no relation to what the land would be worth if used for agriculture.

But that huge jump in house prices has created a housing problem for Bitterroot Valley residents who have to support themselves by working. Many end up unable to afford houses, having to live in mobile homes or recreational vehicles or with their parents, and having to hold two or three jobs simultaneously to support even that spartan lifestyle.

Naturally, these cruel economic facts create antagonism between the old-time residents and the new arrivals from out-of-state, especially rich out-of-staters who maintain a second, third, or even fourth home in Montana (in addition to their homes in San Francisco, Palm Springs, and Florida), and who visit for just short periods each year in order to fish, hunt, golf, or ski. The old-timers complain about the noisy private jet planes flying rich visitors in and out of Hamilton Airport within a single