Why ranching is important

We must also find new value added opportunities for our agriculture products to enhance value and sales. Taken together, these measures will help provide the certainty our agricultural communities need to thrive and move into the future. There is more work to do, but this is a great start. Prices, when displayed, are accurate at the time of publication but may change over time.

Commissions do not influence editorial independence. Skip to main content. Opinion — The Importance of Farming and Ranching. Published Friday, October 20, Senator Cory Gardner, Colorado. You may also like these similar stories:. Ranchers, landowners battle feds over conservation, property rights. Colorado specialty crops grants application open. Thus, a sustainable food system relies on cattle. In addition to their cattle eating otherwise-wasted food, Florida cattle ranches provide many ecosystem services from which humans benefit.

We may not always see these benefits, but they help our environment:. One of the greatest benefits is that Florida ranches sequester, or store, carbon. Well-managed grazing systems can reduce our carbon in the atmosphere and help mitigate climate change. Bahia grass, which is our main forage, or fodder, used on cattle ranches in Florida, can trap carbon in its roots, which can extend many feet below the soil surface.

Such impacts may be persistent; recent work has shown that past mismanagement may significantly undermine the ability to restore riparian communities Harding et al.

Because of harsh winter weather, the provision of supplemental winter feed is important to successful western ranching. In all but the best years, winter hay is a necessity. In the early settlement of Wyoming, ranchers quickly occupied and converted the lands around virtually every significant watercourse from riparian willow, sedge, and shrub into hay meadows Dorn , Larson These wetlands once were critical oases of biodiversity in the harsh, dry environments of the plains.

Native wet meadows may contain willow Salix , alder Alnus , cottonwood Populus , and diverse forbs; hay meadows replace this richness with one or two seeded grasses. Bird species decline or disappear when these habitats are lost, including Lincoln's sparrow Melospiza lincolnii and Wilson's warbler Wilsonia pusilla Schulz and Leininger , Cicero Many studies of livestock grazing document its impacts on ranch riparian communities, but without specifically separating the grazing from the practice of irrigating hay meadows e.

The ubiquity of hay meadows has resulted in a great reduction of willow, alder, cottonwood, and sedge wetlands along most Wyoming streams. Despite the many helpful mitigation projects carried out by responsible ranchers, there is no escaping the fact that water is scarce in the West. Even if the livestock are fenced to prevent riparian trampling, water must still be diverted for the animals, and sacrifice of willows for winter hay is still unavoidable.

This is another major change that has altered the West but is now accepted as the status quo and rarely questioned. We see no easy way to mitigate this important negative impact on the ecosystem.

We know that Native Americans torched the prairies, strongly affecting native fauna for centuries Krech , Wilson Yet the diaries of Lewis and Clark describe a place of unimaginable beauty, of prairie grass, wildlife, and richness, which today seems like an image from a dream. Exactly how different is today's landscape? That is a question rangeland scientists should be working to answer.

Ranching today occupies the largest area and is the dominant land use in the western prairie Donahue Although many people view ranching as a relatively innocuous, pastoral pursuit and a historically valuable part of the Old West Knight et al. Certainly there are better ways to ranch, and progressive ideas based on a fuller understanding of ranching's impacts should be encouraged in the ranching community Dolan Savory's goal of mimicking natural processes, such as bison grazing and patterns of rest and rotation, is good as far as it goes.

Perhaps manure or fertilizer could be used to enrich lands depauperated by the absence of bison carcasses. Fire managers could do what they can to promote a long-term view. Ranchers who value nature can, as we have seen, conserve natural ecosystems while staying in business, provided they consider the ecological effects of both grazing and ranching. The negative effects of ranching that can be mitigated should be mitigated.

The negative effects that cannot be mitigated should be honestly acknowledged. It is important that range scientists learn more about the differences between ranched lands and protected areas.

Controlled experiments contrasting ecosystems on rangelands to national parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges would help resolve the question posed at the beginning of this article: Are the ranched lands different?

The system of large-scale grazing exclosures proposed by Bock and colleagues should be established and studied. Such scientific research could provide the knowledge necessary to help conserve as much of our ecological heritage as possible. New kinds of experimental management could further this research. By removing fences and restoring bison, the Commons would allow restoration of large-scale ecological processes and could supplement the local economy through ecotourism.

We believe one or more of the national grasslands should be devoted to such experiments, with adjacent landowners invited to join in. Such projects would provide valuable comparisons between conventionally ranched lands and unranched lands.

Above all, ranch managers and conservation biologists should consider the six points we have raised as they contemplate today's landscape. These points raise serious questions about whether conventional ranching is compatible with long-term biological conservation. To help enlightened ranchers better manage their lands and help public lands managers decide whether or not to allow grazing on the lands in their care, all the effects of ranching need to be considered.

This article has had the benefit of lively discussions with many academics, ranchers, conservation staffers, and agency personnel. We thank them all greatly for their suggestions. Baker JG. Patterns of plant invasions in North America.

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