Friday, June 17, 2022
CapitalPress.com 9
Grazing: ‘People see livestock as a tool that can be used in different situations’
Continued from Page 1
Today, Madsen often
charges $700 to $1,000 per
day for his services. He has
done projects for private
landowners, colleges, golf
courses, homeowners asso-
ciations, the City of Spokane
and federal agencies.
Experts say the demand
Madsen is experiencing
reflects a broader trend.
Interest in using cattle, sheep
and goats for targeted graz-
ing is intensifying. Both
the U.S. Forest Service and
Bureau of Land Manage-
ment are exploring the tool
along with new technologies
and policies that could prove
transformational.
Though targeted graz-
ing is gaining momentum,
the practice faces opposi-
tion from anti-grazing orga-
nizations, and even support-
ers say it carries logistical
challenges.
“I think it’s the wave of
the future. It’ll just take time
to learn about it and find the
right ways to go,” said Jeff
Rose, manager of the BLM’s
district office in Burns, Ore.
What is targeted
grazing?
David Bohnert, who
directs Oregon State Univer-
sity’s Eastern Oregon Agri-
cultural Research Station in
Burns, defines targeted or
prescribed grazing as “graz-
ing to address a specific land
management objective.”
While general grazing
focuses on livestock nutri-
tion, targeted grazing is about
achieving vegetative or land-
scape goals: for example,
controlling weeds or creating
fuel breaks.
General and prescribed
grazing aren’t mutually
exclusive, said Chad Boyd,
research leader for USDA’s
Agricultural Research Ser-
vice in Burns; general graz-
ing may help reduce fuels as
a secondary benefit even if
that’s not the primary goal.
“There’s some overlap,”
said Boyd.
Federal agency goals
Suzanne Flory, spokes-
woman for the Forest Ser-
vice, said the agency “has
asked regional rangeland
program managers to start
thinking about how graz-
ing can be used to target fine
fuels and invasive species.”
Wade Muehlhof, another
Forest Service spokesman,
said the agency has several
targeted grazing projects
underway and is reaching
out to livestock associations
to find ranchers interested in
enrolling in grazing contracts
through the agency’s System
for Award Management.
Brian Hires, a BLM
spokesman, said BLM is
similarly “expanding its
practices to use livestock as a
management tool” to remove
invasive plants, promote
perennial seeding and create
firebreaks.
BLM has 10 targeted
grazing fuel treatments
planned in California, Colo-
rado, Idaho, Nevada and Ore-
gon, and Hires said there will
likely be “additional oppor-
tunities for contractors.”
Roaring Springs Ranch
Stacy Davies, of Roaring Springs Ranch in Harney County, Ore., says targeted and
outcome-based grazing has been beneficial for the ranch.
Potential benefits
Karen
Launchbaugh,
rangeland ecology professor
at the University of Idaho and
president of the International
Society for Range Manage-
ment, said targeted grazing
can help manage fuels and
invasive weeds.
According to a March
2022 study in the journal
Rangelands, moderate graz-
ing pre-fire can reduce litter
buildup, increase fuel mois-
ture and, when a fire strikes,
reduce its severity.
Kelly Anderson, grazing
specialist for the Minnesota
Department of Agriculture
and targeted grazing com-
mittee chair for the Society
for Range Management, said
prescribed grazing can also
improve wildlife habitat.
Studies from Oregon State
University, the University of
Idaho, Journal of Animal Sci-
ence and Rangelands journal
have found that prescribed
livestock grazing can improve
forage for wild ungulates
including elk, mule deer and
pronghorn antelope and can
improve bird habitats.
Critics remain
Targeted grazing, how-
ever, has critics.
“We’re skeptical about tar-
geted grazing as a solution to
any of the problems that it’s
been proposed for,” said Erik
Molvar, executive director of
Western Watersheds Project,
an environmental organiza-
tion critical of grazing.
High-intensity targeted
grazing often involves over-
grazing, said Molvar. Sev-
eral university studies sug-
gest overgrazing promotes
growth of invasive cheat-
grass and medusahead while
disadvantaging native peren-
nial bunchgrasses.
Molvar said his organi-
zation also remains uncon-
vinced that prescribed graz-
ing or burning are effective
at preventing out-of-control
wildfires.
Though
disagree-
ments persist, experts pre-
dict new technologies may
be game-changers for pre-
scribed grazing and could
help forge common ground
between opposing groups.
Virtual fencing
Both the Forest Service and
BLM are exploring a technol-
ogy called virtual fencing.
ranch grazes about 10,000
head of cattle on more than
1 million acres of BLM land,
including on some targeted
grazing projects.
Remote sensing, paired
with modeling software,
can help digitize landscape
monitoring.
As with virtual fencing,
there are several platforms
available.
Davies,
of
Roaring
Springs Ranch, uses Open
Range Consulting.
Another program is called
Rangeland Analysis Pro-
gram, or RAP, a free platform
blending field data, satellite
imagery and the cloud-based
computing power of Google
Earth Engine.
Land managers can use
data from RAP to map veg-
etation and predict fuel
buildup across landscapes.
“What it’s predicting is
less about fire probability —
where it will strike — but
rather if it does strike, how
severely it will burn,” said
Boyd, of USDA.
Experts say the tech-
nology helps agencies pick
high-priority areas for tar-
geted grazing and eases
range riders’ workloads.
Along with technology,
agencies are also experi-
menting with new policies.
Outcome-based grazing
Courtesy of Todd Parker/Vence
A virtual fencing base station is installed at Six Shooter
Ranch in Central Oregon.
“Grazing and rangeland
management (are) changing,
with virtual fencing, drones,
and there are even now mul-
tiple rangeland vegetation
modeling programs avail-
able to help us manage for
drought and fire,” said Flory,
of the Forest Service.
Virtual fencing isn’t new,
but researchers say the tech-
nology has developed to a
point in the last five years
where it’s now commercially
viable.
There are many iterations
among several startups.
One company is Vence.
According to Todd Parker,
vice president of business
development, Vence’s tech-
nology works like this: A land
manager installs a solar-pow-
ered base station, which can
cover up to 60,000 acres. The
station communicates with
GPS collars worn by cattle.
If a cow tries to leave a des-
ignated area, its collar gives
a warning beep. If the cow
ignores the beep and leaves
the boundary, it’s zapped
with a mild electric shock.
Vence is running trials with
commercial producers on pri-
vate, state and federal lands.
Jere Hamel, who man-
ages cattle on 38,000 acres at
Six Shooter Ranch in Central
Oregon, is an early adopter of
Vence technology.
Hamel said that within a
day of putting collars on his
cows, 90% were trained.
The rancher sees many
benefits to virtual fencing:
It’s affordable; elk can pass
through ranges without top-
pling physical fences; it’s
easy to fence off riparian
areas; and Hamel can view
where cows are grazing via
an app without being on site.
“There has been nothing
else that has excited me in the
cattle business in the last five
years,” said Hamel. “This is
the only thing.”
Agencies, too, are experi-
menting with virtual fencing.
Hires, of the national
BLM office, said virtual
fences “have made flexibil-
ity in grazing easier to imple-
ment across landscapes.”
The Forest Service, mean-
while, plans to deploy vir-
tual fences in the Rogue Riv-
er-Siskiyou National Forest
after mid-June to keep cattle
from moving between Califor-
nia and Oregon. The agency’s
intermountain region — Idaho,
Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and
Colorado — plans to install
virtual fences in 2023.
One potential use of vir-
tual fencing is in regions
where wildfire has destroyed
fences. For example, virtual
boundaries can be used to
“fence off” burned areas.
“The potential is just tre-
mendous,” said Bohnert, of
OSU.
Remote sensing
The other major technol-
ogy experts say could trans-
form grazing on public lands
is remote sensing technology
paired with vegetative mod-
eling software.
Traditionally, range riders
have scoped out landscapes
to determine priority grazing
areas.
“Rangeland monitoring
can be so subjective, because
you’re only testing a few
plots on millions of acres,”
said Stacy Davies, who man-
ages Roaring Springs Ranch
in Southeastern Oregon. The
According to Hires,
BLM’s spokesman, the
agency is set to release new
grazing regulations later in
2022 or early in 2023.
BLM, Hires said, “intends
to provide increased flexibil-
ities for grazing permits and
leases,” which could include
more flexibility for on-off
dates for permits, number of
livestock and pasture rotations.
BLM has been test-
ing these potential policies
through pilot projects called
Outcome-Based
Grazing
demonstrations.
Roaring Springs Ranch is
among the participants.
“It’s been very help-
ful,” said Davies, of Roar-
ing Springs Ranch, describ-
ing the new flexibilities. “It
allows BLM to be much
more biologically driven.”
Rather than moving live-
stock based on pre-set calen-
dar dates, under the pilot pro-
gram, Davies can move cows
based on the landscape’s
needs. If there were a grass-
hopper outbreak, for exam-
ple, he might pull cows off
an allotment sooner; during
a cool, wet spring, he might
leave cows on an allotment
longer than planned.
Though Davies is pleased
with the program, he doesn’t
anticipate everyone will favor
more grazing flexibility.
“(BLM has) been con-
sidering more flexibility at a
broad scale, but my guess is
if they have regs that are too
broad, they’ll be tied up in
court,” he said.
Potential opposition
Experts say if agencies
expand prescribed grazing or
increase regulatory flexibili-
ties, anti-grazing groups will
probably put up a fight.
Molvar,
of Western
Watersheds Project, com-
menting on BLM’s potential
Farm: Ranch to raise millions of chickens for Foster Farms
Continued from Page 1
Bill Mattos, president of the Northwest
Chicken Council, said the permit for J-S
Ranch was approved following extensive
review and examination by ODA and other
agencies.
“This ranch, which will feed 140,000
people each year, meets all the water qual-
ity and air quality requirements in Oregon,”
Mattos said. “It also will maintain Amer-
ican Humane certification requirements,
and the building process will be reviewed
and approved as it goes forward.”
Mattos added the facility will be “one of
the finest in Oregon and the Northwest.”
Eric Simon, a longtime poultry farmer
who has contracted to raise chickens for
Foster Farms in Brownsville, Ore., since
2000, will run J-S Ranch and hopes to
begin construction in July. Once finished,
the farm will raise six flocks of 580,000
chickens per year.
Simon has said J-S Ranch will feature
state-of-the-art technology designed to
provide optimal living conditions for the
chickens — such as temperature, lighting,
humidity and disease control. The farm
will have 11 barns each measuring 39,120
square feet, or approximately 10 acres
changes, said targeted graz-
ing practices “are unproven
techniques, so radically
expanding them would cre-
ate a large, uncontrolled
experiment.”
Marc Fink, public lands
legal director for the Center
for Biological Diversity, an
organization often involved
in litigation against graz-
ing, declined to comment.
The center’s website, how-
ever, states that “the ecolog-
ical costs of livestock graz-
ing exceed that of any other
western land use.”
Hires, of BLM, said his
agency “recognizes that
there is always the potential
for litigation, and that there
is some opposition to using
livestock for reducing fuel
loads.” BLM plans to edu-
cate the public, he said, so
that “use of targeted grazing
will become more valued and
understood by those that are
not yet convinced of its use.”
Muehlhof, of the Forest
Service, said targeted grazing
generally faces less opposi-
tion than general grazing.
“We have not seen oppo-
sition to this thus far,” he
said. “It is our experience
that most environmental
groups prefer this method for
fuels (and) vegetation reduc-
tion or removal of noxious
weeds over herbicides.”
under roof.
“That’s all the science behind raising
poultry, is how comfortable can you make
that bird,” Simon told the Capital Press in
an interview on May 31. “The better the
condition the animals are raised in, the bet-
ter it will convert its feed to growth.”
Simon said hardly any chickens are cur-
rently raised on the West Coast compared
to the “chicken belt” from eastern Texas to
Delaware, and farms like his are important
to diversify U.S. food production.
It took nearly two years for ODA and
DEQ to issue a permit for J-S Ranch after
the initial application was submitted in
August 2020. Even then, it came with a few
added stipulations:
• Before breaking ground, Simon must
obtain a stormwater construction permit
from DEQ, road access permit from Linn
County and water supply plan signed by
the Oregon Water Resources Department.
• Before any chickens arrive, the farm
must complete a ground compaction
study to ensure the poultry barn floors
will not allow contaminants to seep into
groundwater.
• The farm must install and monitor two
static wells to ensure groundwater levels
remain at least 2 feet below the barn floors.
Simon must also provide data from drink-
ing water wells, ensuring groundwater is
healthful to drink.
However, the petitioners argue the per-
mit does not go far enough to protect clean
water.
Among the grounds for reconsideration
listed in the petition, the coalition claims
that unlined, compacted earthen floors
inside the chicken houses are not sufficient,
“given the overall wetness of the area and
high groundwater levels.”
ODA only required 4 inches of com-
pacted soil and no impermeable floor cov-
ering, the petition states, while other states
require at least 12 inches of compacted soil
in similar situations.
The petition further calls out possible
pollution in streams and rivers from air-
borne ammonia emissions. It estimates J-S
Ranch may discharge 850 to 1,190 pounds
of ammonia per day, given the size of the
chicken flocks.
Regulating air pollution is beyond the
scope of the CAFO permit, according to
ODA.
Finally, the groups say they remain con-
cerned about the handling and treatment
of 4,500 tons of chicken litter and manure
generated annually at the farm.
‘Attitudes are changing’
Despite opposition, many
ranchers and researchers say
they’re optimistic about the
future of targeted grazing,
with growing public support
and new technologies.
“Attitudes are chang-
ing, but the other thing that’s
changing is our ability to
have information we need
to make good decisions at
really large spatial scales,”
said Boyd, of USDA.
Researchers say if ranch-
ers want to be compensated
for targeted grazing services,
it may demand more studies
to demonstrate the practice’s
value. Often, ranchers pay to
graze public lands even when
they’re performing a service
like targeted grazing, though
it’s gradually becoming more
common for governments to
pay for prescribed grazing.
Katie Wollstein, Oregon
State University’s regional
wildlife fire specialist for
Harney and Malheur coun-
ties, said if ranchers can
demonstrate the service
they’re providing is for “the
public good,” she would like
to see them either get paid or
receive cost-share support.
Madsen, who runs the
goat grazing service in Spo-
kane, said he prefers projects
with state, local and private
entities over the federal gov-
ernment partly because they
pay better, but he is hopeful
federal agencies will place
more value on targeted graz-
ing in the future.
Since starting his business
two decades ago, Madsen has
seen a societal transforma-
tion he hopes will continue.
“It’s more acceptable
now,” he said. “People see
livestock as a tool that can be
used in different situations.
People even like watching
the goats. It’s a joy seeing the
animals graze.”
Bureau: Shakeup
characterized as
an ‘unforced error’
Continued from Page 1
decade. Change was coming, he said. “I
would guess John did some soul-searching
about where he wanted to go.”
Davis had been the Farm Bureau’s chief
lobbyist since 2012. He is now director of
government relations for the Washington For-
est Protection Association. He said Tuesday
he parted amicably with the Farm Bureau.
Before being elected state president, Mosby
was president of the King-Pierce County Farm
Bureau and was one of the Farm Bureau’s
more prominent speakers to non-farmers.
At the state convention, she gave a
“resounding speech” and her election “went
like an avalanche,” Yakima County Farm
Bureau President Mark Herke said.
“She’s calling it ‘the pivot,’” he said.
“My feeling is that if it’s working pretty
good, don’t make big changes.”
Herke said the Farm Bureau shakeup
risks squandering an opportunity for the
organization to make a difference this elec-
tion year. “We’re taking a misstep, and it’s
an unforced error,” he said.