How refreshing to see a thoughtful, well-researched
article about ranching in HCN, as opposed to the usual ritual
bashing of cows and trashing of ranchers (HCN, 3/29/04: Who will
take over the ranch?). Though HCN Executive Director Paul Larmer
suggests that the paramount question is not, “How do we save
ranching?” but rather, “How do we save the land?” the answer to the
latter question may depend much more on the former than he might
prefer to acknowledge. Just as land trusts are not a panacea for
ranchers, neither are they, in their ultimately limited financial
capabilities, a panacea for “environmental” interests.
While traditional ranching is facing the many challenges of a
mature industry under commodity pricing (not to mention a ravaging
drought), there has been, in many areas, quite a renaissance under
way, from progressive, multivalue resource stewardship to branded
beef marketing. By keeping ranchers on the land, by upgrading their
skills and knowledge in sustainable, ecologically based production
practices, and making available economic incentives for the
production of the array of “ecological services” so valued by 21st
century society (in addition to the traditional “food and fiber”),
much more of the land — and its natural resource values
— can indeed be saved.
Jim
Thorpe
Newkirk, New
Mexico
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline You want to save the ranch? Save the ranchers.
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