Posts Tagged: rangeland

Cattle ranching offers notable public benefits

The Sierra Nevada and Coastal Range foothills are replete with wide open spaces - a home for birds and other wildlife, majestic oaks and grazing cattle. The bucolic countryside vistas that come courtesy of California’s ranchers are among the many public benefits of rangeland grazing.

“The public doesn’t always realize what ranchers are doing and how that benefits everyone,” said Bill Tietje, UC Cooperative Extension natural resources specialist based in San Luis Obispo County.  “No one really thinks about it, until it’s gone.”

Many rangeland benefits can be grouped as “ecosystem services.” According to scientists:

• Rangeland plays a role in the state’s water cycling. Eighty percent of California water flows through rangeland.
• The diversity of plants and animals is greater on grazed, managed grassland than on unmanaged grassland.
• Wild raptors overwinter on grasslands managed for beef cattle.
• Half the habitat for the tiger salamander is grazed stockponds, created by ranchers to provide water for their cattle. The stockpond’s edge of clipped grass and the absence of crowding shrubbery mimic the rare species’ natural habitat – vernal pools.
• Rangeland provides habitat for insects that are valuable for pollination.
• Cattle reduce the dry grass that could fuel wildfire.
• 
  Grazing improves the habitat for the Bay checkerspot butterfly, a threatened California insect.
• Rangeland sequesters carbon in the soil.

There are threats to the long term viability of cattle ranches in California that put all these benefits at risk:

The sale of the ranch for development is very attractive for a rancher who isn’t making a sufficient profit on the land. Also, the division of a ranch for inheritance purposes can make it difficult to keep a ranch intact and in the business of raising cattle.

UC Berkeley professor of rangeland management and ecology Lynn Huntsinger said public misunderstanding of and a lack of appreciation for ranching is another way the system is threatened.

“Imposing regulations that aren’t needed and not valuing ranchers as stewards can have a demoralizing effect,” Huntsinger said.

Much of the land grazed by ranchers is public and grazing is supported by public and environmental agencies - the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, parks and preserves - because of the many benefits it provides.

Ranches can increase income with agritourism

Cattle ranches may be able to boost the bottom line by inviting tourists onto their land for bird watching, hiking, photography or just getting an up-close look at California beef production.

This was the message shared by the director of UC Cooperative Extension in Sierra and Plumas counties, Holly George, at UCCE's annual Oakdale Livestock Forum, according to a story published today in the Modesto Bee.

"I would advise you to look at what you have and genuinely share that," George was quoted in the story.

As an example, George cited the annual Eagles and Agriculture event near Carson City, where raptors flock each year during winter calving season. Eagles and Agriculture -- which attracts photographers, birders and nature-lovers who wish to observe bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, owls and a variety of other bird and wildlife species -- demonstrates the potential for interaction between nature and agriculture.

Cattle farmer Judy Scheppmann, who runs 100 head of cattle on her 360-acre ranch near Farmington, opens her property to a horseback riding group and for garden club gatherings.

"(Ranching is) a way of life, and I would hope the young people could come and appreciate where their food is produced," she said.

An American bald eagle photographed by UC weed scientist Joseph DiTamaso.

Chinese delegation visits Marin research site

A delegation from China's Ministry of Agriculture visited a Marin County ranch on Wednesday to view a collaborative research project aimed at sequestering carbon in rangeland. The visit was covered by Contra Costa Times reporter Mark Prado.

The research collaborators, which includes UC Cooperative Extension, are studying whether application of compost on rangeland will boost plant growth, which in turn would store more carbon. Research leader UC Berkeley professor Whendee Silver shared with the delegation promising early results gleaned from the first year of the five-year project.

"Plants are pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and ... they put it below ground into soils, into their root systems," Silver was quoted in the story. "You can see that our experimental plot is much greener than the control plot. We grew much more grasses by adding compost."

The Chinese visitors' interpreter, Charles Han, told the reporter the visitors wanted to learn more about the process, according to the article.

"They are very interested in land and grass issues," Han was quoted. "We have a lot of land in China."

The Marin Carbon Project is being conducted on Nicasio Native Grass Ranch and involves the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Marin Organic, UCCE in Sonoma and Marin counties, the Marin Resource Conservation District, and the UC Berkeley Department Science, Policy and Management Department.

More information is on the Marin Carbon Project Web site.

Rangeland owners may be able to sequester more carbon on their land.

Media look to agriculture for global warming relief

As protests at the Copenhagen "climate summit" heat up and talks reach a critical stage, the media are looking at a variety of ways humans can slow carbon emissions into the atmosphere, such as changing the way we farm.

In an Ask Pablo column on a Web site called Treehugger, writer Pablo Paster considers whether people should go back to using horses instead of tractors to farm. At first glance, I thought the piece was meant to be humorous, but in fact, Paster researched whether such a change would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Among the data Paster used to support the idea was a 2008 UC Davis Cooperative Extension cost study on wheat production. The columnist noted that UC scientists determined it takes 5.43 gallons of fossil fuels per acre to produce 3.25 tons of wheat.

"When combusted this fuel turns into 122 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Although this number is not going to be the same for every crop we can assume that it is within the right range for all grain crops," Paster wrote.

Combining this information with other data he collected, Paster concluded that tractors emit 122 pounds of CO₂ per acre compared to the 21.5 pounds of indirect emissions from the horse. "If the horse feed were also cultivated by horses this number would be even smaller," Paster wrote.

He acknowledged the difficulty of producing all the world's food using horses, but said small-scale, organic farms could find many advantages to using draft horses.

"Horses have a lower upfront cost and their fuel (feed) also costs less, they tread lightly on the ground, and they even bring their own fertilizer to the fields," he wrote.

Meanwhile, National Public Radio reporter Christopher Joyce joined UC Berkeley environmental science professor Whendee Silver on a visit to a Marin County research site where she is looking at the use of compost on rangeland to increase its carbon-holding capacity.

The compost, a mix of plant clippings and animal manure, "increases plant growth, it actually also lowers the temperature a little bit, so the soil doesn't get quite as hot, it doesn't stimulate as much microbial activity."

The taller grass and minimized soil activity mean the acreage stores more carbon.

"Hopefully, (farmers will) be able to participate in a carbon market, where we can quantify how much carbon is being stored on the land, and they can sell that as a carbon offset," Silver told the reporter.

UCCE farm advisor explains rangeland irony

Forage monitoring at the UC Sierra Research and Extension Center in Browns Valley shows the land produced, on average, 2,984 pounds of vegetation per acre, 93.4 percent of normal, according to an article published today in Capital Press. That may sound fantastic - 93.4 percent looks like an A to me. But UCCE farm advisor Larry Forero said that the growth came too late for most ranchers.

In fact, in nearby Tehama County, officials are seeking a federal disaster declaration because of drought damage to its rangelands. Reporter Tim Hearden wrote that neighboring counties may follow suit.

The problem may not be too little rain, but the timing of the rain. Much of the vegetation grew after April and May storms, Forero said. By that time, some ranchers - concerned about the lack of forage on the foothill land - had already moved their cattle to higher-elevation summer pastures or to irrigated pastures.

The fact that vegetation was left behind may prove helpful in the fall when cattle return to the range. But Northern California ranchers took another blow when it rained in early June.

This late rain can sometimes do more harm than good, Forero told the reporter. When the grass is dry, rain can leach it and reduce its nutritional value.

"This is an incredibly complicated business," Forero told me when we spoke this morning.

Forage was below average each month of '09 season.

The average is shown in green; this year's production is in pink.

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