Agriculture and the Environment
I took an impromptu “Spring Break trip” to the Black Hills in Western South Dakota at the end of last week, and I spent a few days enjoying the scenic beauty of the Badlands, Custer State Park, Spearfish Canyon, Black Hills National Forest and notable landmarks, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Bear Butte and Roughlock Falls. (If you’re looking for a summer vacation spot, South Dakota is the place to be!) Despite the snow-packed hills, I didn’t let the weather interfere with my mini-vacation, and I filled my days with hiking through the many trails. While on my nature walks, I discovered a host of wild animals including: mule deer, white-tail deer, bighorn sheep, bison and pronghorn antelope. I noticed that the deer and antelope that were grazing in the agriculture fields appeared much healthier than the ones in the national parks. It occurred to me that this was an obvious example of how ranchers are stewards of the land.
We all know that agriculture plays a vital role in the environment. According to Beef From Pasture to Plate, cattle production has a positive impact on wildlife. A combination of livestock and wildlife management on grazing lands has resulted in better species survival than when these activities are practiced separately. In the Eastern and Central United States, wildlife is almost entirely dependent on ranch, farm and other private lands; so, ranchers play an important role in the survival of native species.
Today, I want to know how we can focus our efforts to be certain that consumers and the media understand agriculture’s dedication to environmental stewardship. How do we show people that food production enhances the environment, providing ample food for both people and wildlife? What can we do to prove that ranchers truly care about sustainability of our world’s natural resources? I’m looking for your thoughts and ideas; I always appreciate your insights.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:40 am
I think you make a great point. Farmer and Ranchers are the original environmentalists, but we to often turn our back on that due to some of the fights between ag and the “hard green” folks over the last few years.
Many of us who grow USDA program crops like corn, wheat, cotton or soybeans have to have a Conservation Plan put together by USDA NRCS and our local conservation districts to stay in compliance to recieve farm payments on highly erodible land. On top of this, many other producers, including livestock producers who have no crop land have conservation plans on their land and are doing great work to conserve and protect our soil, water, air and wildlife habitats. We should speak more about this and show what we are already doing.
In addition, we also should embrace that heritage of environmental stewardship and not be so quick to shy away from doing more to be good stewards of the land. Some of us have a knee jerk reaction to any kind of suggestion that we could do a better job of natural resource protection and dismiss any move tied to environmental protection as some kind of Hippie-commie plot.
Case in Point—the current administration is talking about changing farm programs over time from the current production based model to some kind of series of green payments. Now the devil is in the details and it could be a real mess if it isn’t done right, but from the start, many of our fellow agriculturalist said not just no, but hell no. Why? Clearly the majority the US population knows little or nothing about the day to day operations of production agriculture and it is getting harder every year to convince them as to why I should get farm payments because prices are low or just because I have wheat base on my land. But, these same folks are very concerned about the environment and would be willing to pay us to keep their water clean, suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and improve wildlife habitat.
Why not embrace that idea? Not only would they then help us politically with things like the farm bill, but the same folks who now attack us might even come to appreciate all we do to protect the environment. Wouldn’t it be nice to see articles in major newspapers praising what we do instead of stories we have to respond to all the time? Also, new sources of income from things like hunting leases, carbon sequestraton and agri-tourism become much more lucrative when you practice good stewardship on the land. I want to be clear—the land is still in production. Cattle or other ruminants are still grazing, crops are still growing, we are still raising poultry and swine, just that we are being more mindful of our environmental impact.
Again, the devil is in the details and any change have to allow us to produce the food and fiber neccesary to feed and clothe the world. We also have to be able to make a profit from the land (of course, you might argue that this isn’t the case with the current approach we are taking, but that is another topic for another day) but I think we need to start looking at ways we can embraced our stewardship side and maybe even tie the passion our fellow citizens have for the environment to our economical well being. Botom line for most of us in production ag is that we want to make money on the land. If we can do that by going green, why not? After all, the green is also the color of money.
March 19th, 2009 at 9:37 am
You present a very interesting case study to consider. Why fight them when we can work with them? I think eventually ranchers will “go green” in their own respect, and it is difficult to embrace the concept when the “hard green” people don’t focus on the same things we do. I appreciate your thoughts, and I especially like your closing sentence, “After all, green is also the color of money.” Too true! Thanks for your comments and continued readership! I appreciate it!
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment:
Register Here or Log in Here.