This is How Bad the Grasshoppers Are in Eastern Montana

The grasshoppers are getting BAD in Eastern Montana. How bad? Let's just say I liked the idea thrown out by "Right on John" in Bozeman. (More on that below)

Here's some numbers from the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, as Evelyn Pyburn reports for The Big Sky Business Journal:

"Montana Farm Bureau is predicting severe losses for agriculture this year because a majority of the state has a grasshopper infestation. Parts of eastern Montana are seeing 15-plus grasshoppers per square yard and others report fifty hoppers or greater, according to MFBF Senior Director of Governmental Affairs Nicole Rolf. MFBF is trying to get increased funding of $1.5 million from the federal government to help combat the situation."

Here's what else is crazy, I saw a grasshopper on the outside of our radio studio windows in Billings, Montana. Our "Montana Talks" radio studios are co-located with Cat Country, The Hawk, and The Mix in Billings. A grasshopper on your window? Big deal, you might say. Here's the catch- we are on the 23rd floor of the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Billings.

So here was the idea from "Right on John." You know how folks like Bill Gates want you to eat bugs instead of beef? What if we set up a grasshopper capture combine and sell them to folks like Bill Gates to eat? Sounds like a plan.

With the Olympics taking place in Paris this week, I guess that would be Montanans way of saying, "Let them eat cake!"