Challenges for grazing lands

Excerpt

Grazing lands are an important resource in North America. They are basic to environmental, social, and economic stability. When properly managed, the resource is a renewable source of food and fiber and a protector of our water and soil resources.

It's a resource that in recent years hasn't had the natural resources policy attention of other land uses. In fact, some would say it has been a neglected resource in terms of public policy and natural resource technical attention. It has been argued that the agricultural and natural resources legislative attention in the 1985 and 1990 farm bills, focusing on cropland erosion concerns, actually diverted technical attention from ongoing and traditional grazing lands initiatives and programs.

In the United States and Canada, the rangeland resources are significant by any standard. And it's not just on public lands. Privatelyowned grazing lands make up one third of the land base of the lower 48 states in the United States. Private rangelands, pasturelands, hayland, and grazed woodlands occupy more than 634 million acres. The 1987 National Resources Inventory claims that 401 million acres of rangeland need treatment. The potential for grazing lands resource conservation accomplishments is tremendous …