BuzzH
Well-known member
Grazing fee drops seven cents
by Brodie Farquhar
The fee for grazing on federal lands in the West has been lowered seven cents to $1.35, as low as it is legally allowed to fall.
Wyoming ranchers applaud the shift as appropriate, but say it reflects bad times for livestock producers.
"The lower grazing fee is actually bad news," said Bryce Reece, executive director for the Wyoming Wool Growers.
Because the grazing fee formula is pegged to the economy and prices are down, the lower grazing fee is simply another signal of tough times for the livestock industry, he said.
At $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM) for 2003, the fee rests on a floor established by Congress in 1978 and confirmed by an executive order in 1978. An animal unit month is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf or a horse or five sheep for a month.
The 7-cent shift means $647,061 less revenue for the Bureau of Land Management, assuming that 2002 AUM numbers stay constant for 2003. They may not, given industry trends. Wildfires and the ongoing drought have pushed about a million AUM in livestock off of BLM lands.
According to BLM spokesman Tom Gorey, BLM had 10,087,988 AUMs on all its rangelands in 1999.
"That's dropped 20 percent since then," Gorey said, to 8,088,261 in 2002.
Ranchers are already economically stressed by the market and drought, so paying 7-cents less per AUM helps a little bit, Magagna said.
"Every little bit helps," said Jim Magagna, executive director of the Wyoming Stock Growers.
The lower AUM is fair, he said, since the drought has lowered the amount of forage on BLM lands and its nutritional value.
Grazing foe Jon Marvel, director of the Western Watersheds Project, called the grazing fee "an absurd anachronism. It is past time to have market-based grazing fees."
Marvel said the grazing fee formula bears "no relationship to the value of the land," and so subsidizes livestock producers.
"It is ironic that an administration that favors capitalism would advocate a command and control, Stalinist system when it comes to allocation of grazing lands," Marvel said.
The conservative Political Economy Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont., has given the Bush Administration a "C-" grade on public lands grazing, mostly because Bush hasn't required grazing permitees to post bonds for the environmental consequences of their actions, and hasn't allowed the exchange of grazing permits between willing sellers and willing buyers -- including environmental groups like Marvel's.
"We do agree that grazing fees are low compared to private grazing," said Jane Shaw, a senior associate and PERC editor.
PERC is a nonprofit research and educational organization with a goal of seeking market solutions to environmental problems.
The annually adjusted grazing fee is computed by using a 1966 base value of $1.23 per AUM for livestock grazing on public lands in Western States, Gorey said . The figure is then adjusted according to three factors -- current private grazing land lease rates, beef cattle prices, and the cost of livestock production. Based on the formula, the 2003 fee dropped primarily because of a decline in beef cattle prices in 2002.
The $1.35 per AUM grazing fee, which takes effect March 1, applies to 16 Western states on public lands administered by the BLM and the Forest Service.
Wyoming BLM manages approximately 18.1 million acres of public rangeland, and 1.3 million AUMs are authorized, with 1.1 million for cattle and 186,877 for sheep.
AUM data for the national forests in Wyoming was not immediately available.
I guess some things never change, like the value of grazing fees. Then they wonder why the government cant make any money.
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 02-07-2003 16:09: Message edited by: BuzzH ]</font>
by Brodie Farquhar
The fee for grazing on federal lands in the West has been lowered seven cents to $1.35, as low as it is legally allowed to fall.
Wyoming ranchers applaud the shift as appropriate, but say it reflects bad times for livestock producers.
"The lower grazing fee is actually bad news," said Bryce Reece, executive director for the Wyoming Wool Growers.
Because the grazing fee formula is pegged to the economy and prices are down, the lower grazing fee is simply another signal of tough times for the livestock industry, he said.
At $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM) for 2003, the fee rests on a floor established by Congress in 1978 and confirmed by an executive order in 1978. An animal unit month is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf or a horse or five sheep for a month.
The 7-cent shift means $647,061 less revenue for the Bureau of Land Management, assuming that 2002 AUM numbers stay constant for 2003. They may not, given industry trends. Wildfires and the ongoing drought have pushed about a million AUM in livestock off of BLM lands.
According to BLM spokesman Tom Gorey, BLM had 10,087,988 AUMs on all its rangelands in 1999.
"That's dropped 20 percent since then," Gorey said, to 8,088,261 in 2002.
Ranchers are already economically stressed by the market and drought, so paying 7-cents less per AUM helps a little bit, Magagna said.
"Every little bit helps," said Jim Magagna, executive director of the Wyoming Stock Growers.
The lower AUM is fair, he said, since the drought has lowered the amount of forage on BLM lands and its nutritional value.
Grazing foe Jon Marvel, director of the Western Watersheds Project, called the grazing fee "an absurd anachronism. It is past time to have market-based grazing fees."
Marvel said the grazing fee formula bears "no relationship to the value of the land," and so subsidizes livestock producers.
"It is ironic that an administration that favors capitalism would advocate a command and control, Stalinist system when it comes to allocation of grazing lands," Marvel said.
The conservative Political Economy Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont., has given the Bush Administration a "C-" grade on public lands grazing, mostly because Bush hasn't required grazing permitees to post bonds for the environmental consequences of their actions, and hasn't allowed the exchange of grazing permits between willing sellers and willing buyers -- including environmental groups like Marvel's.
"We do agree that grazing fees are low compared to private grazing," said Jane Shaw, a senior associate and PERC editor.
PERC is a nonprofit research and educational organization with a goal of seeking market solutions to environmental problems.
The annually adjusted grazing fee is computed by using a 1966 base value of $1.23 per AUM for livestock grazing on public lands in Western States, Gorey said . The figure is then adjusted according to three factors -- current private grazing land lease rates, beef cattle prices, and the cost of livestock production. Based on the formula, the 2003 fee dropped primarily because of a decline in beef cattle prices in 2002.
The $1.35 per AUM grazing fee, which takes effect March 1, applies to 16 Western states on public lands administered by the BLM and the Forest Service.
Wyoming BLM manages approximately 18.1 million acres of public rangeland, and 1.3 million AUMs are authorized, with 1.1 million for cattle and 186,877 for sheep.
AUM data for the national forests in Wyoming was not immediately available.
I guess some things never change, like the value of grazing fees. Then they wonder why the government cant make any money.
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 02-07-2003 16:09: Message edited by: BuzzH ]</font>
