The Welfare Cattle Empire That Controls Your Public Lands: article

[Hnthrdr]

To play devils advocate to your question. Is there a difference between providing a “subsidy” that everyone that wants to gets a benefit versus one that a private individual gets to further their profit?


I am more wondering if people are finally realizing how much government money is injected into everything and keeping things moving forward. It doesn’t matter the industry, they all are subsidized in some form and the best PR campaigns are ran convincing you that they “need” it and you should be mad that some other industry is subsidized. Just pointing the fingers at everyone else hoping you don’t look at them.

I agree, yet in many many places private profits a lot off of the subsidies not just rancher. All the Medicare/ Medicaid entitlements are enriching private people at the expense of massive subsidies also coupled with fraud. I would rather have a massive cattle herd as a nation than waste more money on fraud or let wild places be bought and paved, every time they build and develop habitat it’s a double whammy. We get less habitat and you will get more and more people moving in and pressuring finite resources

 

[WRO]

Is this true? Every time my dad takes a load to the auction you can’t wipe the smile off his face when he’s selling weaners for $5 Plus a pound.

I was talking to a ranching buddy of mine the other day, he was talking to the neighbors and they had an interesting take. He said in 1970 they took all their calves in and got 30k for them and thought they were rich, that’s like 5 new ford trucks.. they just sold all their spring calves for 500k this year, which is about 5 new ford trucks.

The industrial AG complex holds a huge amount of sway over wildlife MOs, reintroduction of bison, and land use, most of which do not benefit public land hunters etc. I don’t think it should go away, but I don’t think they’re are Allie’s either. Our interests intersect in some areas, same as they do with many environmental groups on certain issues.

 

[WRO]

Hansjorg Wyss and the APR resemble that remark.

Except the Apr allow access and hunting on their lands which is a huge differentiator..


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[MTBackroads]

Except the Apr allow access and hunting on their lands which is a huge differentiator..


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Not all of their properties allow access and they can close the rest of them on a whim.

 

[Hnthrdr]

Not all of their properties allow access and they can close the rest of them on a whim.

I get the feeling that APR is is piggybacking off of grassroots hunters and anglers since they make good advocates and will rally hard behind stuff IF access is allowed… APR will shut the gates the second they feel it’s not politically expedient anymore to keep them open.

 

[displacedtexan]

If you need thousands of acres to graze hundreds of cattle, maybe you shouldn’t be grazing cattle there? Maybe it should be public land just left wild? I’d rather have wild bison and other species there than cows.

I agree. And I'm far from anti farming/ranching... But if you need hundreds of acres a head, you're just wanting to cosplay as a cowboy in the mountains. Which sounds great, I understand.

Literally any other business requiring 100 times as much to produce the product, is terrible.

Imagine talking to two painters about a project... One says it'll take a week, the other says 2 years. You're going to think the second guy is incompetent and running the worst business ever.

 

[Cwsharer]

Most of the good grazing land that “makes practical sense “ has been developed into houses back east and broken up to parcels too small the run a ranch on , forcing grazing on less desirable grazing land ,although the land has been grazed for hundreds of years and has always penciled out to make it worth it , might as well say well since you can kill a deer in your backyard in Virginia why would you travel to hunt mule deer out west??. Although I agree it has bad optics what is the alternative? All the river bottom private land will be 5 acre parcels full of people wanting a piece of your current honey hole . Cows over condos people!

 

[Marbles]

As with all other public land related issues, my stance is that no matter how dumb the existing system is, activists trying to 'fix' it will just make it worse.

Leave well enough alone.

There is some truth to this. It is much easier to make things worse than to make them better and slow, incremental attempts at improvement are safer than attempting wholesale change all at once. But, this position requires the humility to admit that there are gaps in our knowledge and things don't always run as expected.

This is a true Conservative position, but very rare at present.

 

[KsRancher]

I agree. And I'm far from anti farming/ranching... But if you need hundreds of acres a head, you're just wanting to cosplay as a cowboy in the mountains. Which sounds great, I understand.

Literally any other business requiring 100 times as much to produce the product, is terrible.

Imagine talking to two painters about a project... One says it'll take a week, the other says 2 years. You're going to think the second guy is incompetent and running the worst business ever.

Thats apples to oranges. You need to ask one guy how long to paint a project and ask the other guy how long to paint a project 100 times the size and expect the same time frame. There is a lot of good cattle comes out of the high desert country. Nothing the matter with grazing it. You can't comprehend the number of cattle that comes out of that type of land.

 

[WRO]

I get the feeling that APR is is piggybacking off of grassroots hunters and anglers since they make good advocates and will rally hard behind stuff IF access is allowed… APR will shut the gates the second they feel it’s not politically expedient anymore to keep them open.

They have a 20 year track record of allowing public access. I think what they’re doing is neat idea and if a billionaire wants to dump their money into habitat and access I’m all for it, even if the locals are convinced it’ll turn their cows gay..


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[WRO]

Not all of their properties allow access and they can close the rest of them on a whim.

As opposed to 99% of private that’s always closed?

Look at the groups actively working against them, UPOM and the public lands council for example are both have heinous takes on public land, access, and wildlife.

 

[displacedtexan]

Thats apples to oranges. You need to ask one guy how long to paint a project and ask the other guy how long to paint a project 100 times the size and expect the same time frame. There is a lot of good cattle comes out of the high desert country. Nothing the matter with grazing it. You can't comprehend the number of cattle that comes out of that type of land.

Number of head is the product. Acres is the resources.

There is a lot of good cattle coming out of the high desert, but there's a whole lot more coming from areas that get more rain.

You have no clue what I know, which is why you're accidentally making the same point I was.

 

[MTBackroads]

As opposed to 99% of private that’s always closed?

Look at the groups actively working against them, UPOM and the public lands council for example are both have heinous takes on public land, access, and wildlife.

Tons of private allows access through block management or just being polite. Lots of APR properties allowed access before being purchased as well.
Your 99% claim is ridiculous

 

[WRO]

Tons of private allows access through block management or just being polite. Lots of APR properties allowed access before being purchased as well.
Your 99% claim is ridiculous

Across the west it’s very close to that, block management and ah&e programs are declining across the west.


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[BBob]

Wildlife advocates call for justice after 9 horses killed in eastern Arizona

Advocates call for justice after 9 wild horses shot dead in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest near Heber-Overgaard last week.

www.azfamily.com

You can

So I don’t get it. On one hand the article states “The Forest Service said the killed horses are considered feral and are not protected under federal law” but on the other hand it says “The U.S. Forest Service is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Nixon said she is adding another $5,000 to the reward and expects the total amount to increase further”. So if those particular horses weren’t protected under the law how can there be a reward offered leading to an arrest and conviction?

 

[2531usmc]

As with all other public land related issues, my stance is that no matter how dumb the existing system is, activists trying to 'fix' it will just make it worse.

Leave well enough alone.

Need to ask “who is funding the “activist””?

 

[KsRancher]

Number of head is the product. Acres is the resources.

There is a lot of good cattle coming out of the high desert, but there's a whole lot more coming from areas that get more rain.

You have no clue what I know, which is why you're accidentally making the same point I was.

You're right. I have no idea what you know. But to say that type of land shouldn't run cattle is crazy. Thats like saying eastern Colorado and western Kansas shouldn't farm since the farmland from central Kansas all the way to the great lakes area raises significantly more bushels per acre. Texas is no different. Takes 10 times the acres for a cow in west Texas compared to east Texas. The places with good rain an soil gets farmed if possible.

I see why you made the analogy you did. But its just doesn't fit this scenario. A cow/calf unit should be worth X amount of dollars for summer grass. So the land per acre rents or sells accordingly.

 

[KsRancher]

Number of head is the product. Acres is the resources.

There is a lot of good cattle coming out of the high desert, but there's a whole lot more coming from areas that get more rain.

You have no clue what I know, which is why you're accidentally making the same point I was.

You're right. I have no idea what you know. But to say that type of land shouldn't run cattle is crazy. Thats like saying eastern Colorado and western Kansas shouldn't farm since the farmland from central Kansas all the way to the great lakes area raises significantly more bushels per acre. Texas is no different. Takes 10 times the acres for a cow in west Texas compared to east Texas. The places with good rain an soil gets farmed if possible.

I see why you made the analogy you did. But its just doesn't fit this scenario. A cow/calf unit should be worth X amount of dollars for summer grass. So the land per acre rents or sells accordingly.

 

[displacedtexan]

You're right. I have no idea what you know. But to say that type of land shouldn't run cattle is crazy. Thats like saying eastern Colorado and western Kansas shouldn't farm since the farmland from central Kansas all the way to the great lakes area raises significantly more bushels per acre. Texas is no different. Takes 10 times the acres for a cow in west Texas compared to east Texas. The places with good rain an soil gets farmed if possible.

I see why you made the analogy you did. But its just doesn't fit this scenario. A cow/calf unit should be worth X amount of dollars for summer grass. So the land per acre rents or sells accordingly.

I didn't say it shouldn't be used for ranching. I even said I understand why people do it.

And even western Kansas, Eastern CO and West Texas that take 10-20 acres a cow vs the 1 in East Texas/SE OK and that swath is WAY different than the places out west that need public lands to afford the 100-200 acres a head.

Ranching is literally the only industry that will join accept the incredibly low productivity and act like it's essential.