Public Lands and Red 

 Meat Production 



E. Wayne Hage 



Rancher 



Tonopah, Nebraska 



N. 



o issue facing the western cattleman today has 

 greater potential for long term increase in food pro- 

 duction than the public lands tenure issue. A failure to 

 resolve the public lands tenure issue has the potential 

 to continue the erosion of food production efficiency 

 to the point of elimination of the public lands livestock 

 industry 



To examine this potential consider that approxi- 

 mately one-third of the land area of the contiguous 48 

 states is controlled by the federal government — 

 parks, wildlife refuge, Indian and military reserva- 

 tions — but these constitute only a small portion of 

 the whole The majority of these lands are used for 

 grazing domestic livestock and are under the jurisdic- 

 tion of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land 

 Management 



These public lands of the western United States 

 produce 22 percent of all the feeder cattle in the 

 United States, Government and private studies agree 

 that the lands are producing much below their 

 potential. 



These lands act as a giant solar collector. No fos- 

 sil fuel is expended in tillage and cultivation. Perennial 

 grasses and shrubs as well as many annual species 

 grow naturally Harvesting is accomplished without the 

 direct expenditure of fossil fuels. Livestock grazing 

 these rangelands accomplish this task through their 

 natural life processes. As fossil fuels become more 

 scarce and the cost of energy as a whole increases, 

 these energy efficient grazing lands of the West 



become more significant. 



Prime croplands of the United States are being con- 

 verted to non-agricultural uses at a very rapid rate. 

 As more and more conversion of our cultivated 

 cropland takes place, there is an increasing need to 

 convert other prime potential croplands currently being 

 used for livestock grazing to field crops. This 

 increases the need for the full and efficient utilization 

 of our energy efficient western ranges for red meat 

 production. 



To further underscore the potential of our western 

 rangelands consider the economic impact of these 

 lands on our economy. Every cow grazing for one 

 month on our rangelands produces a $70 to $135 

 impact on the regional (multi-county) economy as 

 shown by Oregon State University studies. It would be 

 worth our time to briefly review how the impact is 

 generated, 



DISCUSSION 



Forage without a means of harvesting that forage 

 has no forage value Much of our western range area 

 was originally in that condition. As the land was set- 

 tled ranchers developed support facilities for livestock 

 operations throughout the range areas. Where water 

 was available for irrigation, riparian areas were 

 expanded to produce supplemental forage for the win- 

 ter months Where no water was available, wells 

 were drilled, springs developed or water hauled to 



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