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Grazing Lands
RCA Issue Brief #6
November 1995
Where are the U.S. grazing lands?
How grazing lands have changed
Why are grazing lands important?
Grazing land health
Multiple benefits of grazing lands
Did you know ...
...that nearly half of the lower 48 states is grazing land: range, pasture,
hay, and grazed forest?
...that range, pasture, hay, and grazed forest land are located where they
are primarily because of climate or topography and by landowners' decisions
about land use?
...that properly managed grazing is one of the most energy-efficient ways
of producing food and fiber?
...that grazing lands help improve water supplies for residential, commercial,
agricultural, and recreational uses?
...that many wildlife species rely on grazing lands for habitat and food?
...that carbon sequestration (absorption of atmospheric carbon by soil and
plants) occurs when farmers and ranchers practice good grazing land management?
And that carbon sequestration is a key to mitigating climate change?
...that grazing lands could be developed by farmers and ranchers as a source
of biomass energy and raw materials, which could reduce U.S. reliance on
imported products?
Grazing lands exist in every state, but the amounts and kinds of land and
the uses, products, and values from grazing lands vary from state to state.
Examples of grazing land include--
- annual grasslands of California;
- hot deserts in the southwestern states and cold deserts in the Great
Basin;
- shrub-grasslands throughout the western states;
- prairie grasslands of the Great Plains and Corn Belt;
- humid grasslands of the eastern United States and Hawaii;
- tundra rangelands of Alaska;
- improved pasture and hay lands throughout the Intermountain West,
Northern Great Plains, Great Lakes, Northeast, and South;
- wetlands and riparian areas in every state; and
- grazed forests in all states adjacent to and east of the Mississippi
River and in the mountain states of the West.
Although some pasture and hay lands are managed as a monoculture, others--particularly
rangelands--are complex mixes of species that offer increased plant, animal,
and landscape diversity. Many eastern forests used for timber production
are also grazed, particularly if the forest land type is suitable for livestock
grazing and other forage, such as pasture or hay, is available.
During the first half of this century, most agricultural operations included
both cropland and grazing land. Cattle, sheep, and goats often grazed land
that could not or should not have been cultivated or otherwise used intensively.
New technology and new marketing opportunities in the 1970's, however, encouraged
farmers to plow lands that had not been previously cultivated. The result,
in many places, was increased erosion on lands that formerly had been protected
by grasses, legumes, and shrubs.
Although some runoff and erosion are natural, accelerated erosion on degraded
land reduces the land's production potential and causes offsite damage from
sedimentation in streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. Accelerated erosion
is a concern not only where grazing lands have been plowed, but also on
lands that are grazed improperly. Improper grazing can lead to other detrimental
environmental impacts. Twenty-five percent of the Nation's grazing lands
need some form of conservation treatment to reduce erosion.
Energy savingsGrazing animals eat plants that cannot be digested
by humans and many other animals, and have the advantage of producing food
and fiber with little expenditure of fossil fuel energy. On properly managed
grazing land--including pasture-land and hayland--only 1 calorie of fossil-fuel
energy is needed to produce up to 2 calories of food and fiber energy. Many
crops require from 5 to 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy for every calorie
of food or fiber produced. Improving the efficiency of grazing land production
can increase landowners' income, improve environmental quality, and help
reduce the Nation's dependence on imported fossil fuel.
Food, medicine, and other productsGrazing by domestic livestock
has been the primary use of grazing lands since European settlement and
remains one of the most important uses today. Meat, milk, leather, wool,
and mohair are well-known products from grazing animals. Less well known
are pharmaceuticals produced from nonfood parts of the animals; natural
fertilizers from animal bones, blood, and manure; and new and unique uses
of familiar products--such as using wool, which readily absorbs oil, to
remove spilled oil from soils, streams, lakes, and oceans.
Water storage and releaseVast quantities of rain and snow fall
on the Nation's grazing lands. On healthy grazing lands, much of the water
infiltrates into the soil and is used for plant growth, is stored in underground
aquifers, or flows through the soil, providing water for streamflow, riparian
areas, wetlands, and lakes, and sub- sequent use by people and wildlife.
Water qualityModern grazing land management is one of the most
important ways that farmers and ranchers can reduce erosion and water pollution
and diversify income. For example, natural drainage areas on farms and the
riparian areas adjacent to streams can be planted to grazing land plants.
These forage plants capture runoff and sediment from the fields and protect
water quality. Where sufficient plant material is left in grassed waterways
or stream buffer zones for soil and water conservation purposes, a significant
amount of the plant material can be grazed or mechanically harvested. There
may also be outdoor recreation income options available--hiking, camping,
horseback riding, hunting, and fishing.
WildlifeHunting and fishing are important recreational activities,
and when many people think of wildlife they think of game species--deer,
elk, grouse, or trout. But all wildlife have intrinsic value and are part
of the ecological functioning of grazing lands. Everyone enjoys the unexpected
view of a white-tailed deer on a pasture or grazed forest in the eastern
United States, of an antelope in the Northern Great Plains or the Great
Basin, of a pheasant in a grassed waterway in the Corn Belt, of a hawk in
the desert Southwest, and of a mule deer on rangelands in any of the western
states. People enjoy watching and listening to songbirds, and hearing--maybe
seeing--a fish jump in a stream or pond. These experiences are made more
enjoyable by the spectacular scenery that is often associated with grazing
lands--the mountains of the West, the stark desert landscape of the Southwest,
the prairie vistas of the Great Plains, and the green grass of pastures
contrasted with the fall color of trees in the East.
Waste utilizationAs concentrated animal production facilities--poultry
and swine farms, beef feedlots, and confinement dairies--have become more
common in a few geographical areas, and cities have begun to run out of
landfill space, grazing lands have become attractive and appropriate locations
on which to spread organic products and recycle the nutrients they contain.
Spreading poultry litter on pasture land in the southern and eastern United
States has allowed landowners to improve forage production and develop a
more successful beef industry.
When properly applied, manure and other organic by-products can enhance
the productivity and soil quality of grazing lands by increasing soil organic-matter
content, improving soil moisture-holding capacity, and supplying valuable
nutrients. If such by-products are applied to degraded land, or if they
are applied in excess of the land's capacity to absorb them, the organic
matter and nutrients from them can wash into streams, lakes, and estuaries,
causing serious water quality degradation.
Carbon sequestrationGrazing land soils in the Great Plains contain
over 40 tons of carbon per acre, while cultivated soils contain only about
26, on average. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases may be increasing
in the earth's atmosphere and changing the earth's climate. The grasses,
legumes, and shrubs on grazing lands remove carbon dioxide from the air
through photo- synthesis and store it in the soil when roots die and decompose.
This process promotes the long-term sequestration of carbon as soil organic
matter. Cultivated lands planted to grassland plants as part of the Conservation
Reserve Program were found to have added an average of 1,000 pounds of carbon
per acre per year during the first 5 years after planting. This means that
the CRP alone is removing 18 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere
each year. This gain in sequestration of atmospheric carbon will continue
until the soil reaches its equilibrium level of carbon.
BiomassGrazing land plants can be harvested as sources for biomass
energy or as feed stocks for industrial materials. There is a growing interest
in using plant materials for energy because of the United States' dependence
on foreign oil and concern about climate change associated with the release
of fossil carbon into the atmosphere. Using homegrown plant material for
energy would reduce to some extent the amount of oil that is imported. Burning
plants for energy releases carbon dioxide into the air, but this carbon
is offset by the carbon removed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
Biomass carbon is, therefore, a renewable and sustainable resource.
Good grazing land management often leads to a more productive mix of plants.
Also, soils are less compacted and more protected from the erosive forces
of wind or water, and the self-regenerative capacity of the land is improved.
Collectively, this improvement is considered a gain in grazing land health.
Loss of grazing land health means that some options for current and future
uses of the land have been temporarily or perhaps permanently lost.
What causes loss of grazing land health? The most common reason is overgrazing
by domestic and wild animals. Fortunately, grazing lands can be maintained
in a healthy state with grazing, and properly managed grazing can enhance
ecosystem health. Sheep grazing, for instance, can reduce the dominance
of leafy spurge and other noxious weeds on rangelands and thereby promote
greater biodiversity. In many parts of the country, livestock--cattle, sheep,
and goats--graze in shrub- and forest-dominated ecosystems to remove and
prevent the buildup of highly flammable material and reduce the likelihood
of wildfire.
Healthy grazing lands provide benefits other than feed for domestic animals.
They are important habitats for a variety of large and small mammals, birds,
and insects. Water runoff on healthy grazing land is slow, so more water
infiltrates into the soil, providing cleaner, more abundant water for fish,
wildlife, and human use. The plant cover on more than 600 million acres
of grazing land sequesters millions of tons of carbon, thus reducing atmospheric
carbon dioxide. Many grazing lands are among the Nation's most picturesque
landscapes.
Although grazing lands are our biggest agricultural reserve, most of them
are not suitable for crops. Nevertheless, some 180 million acres of non-Federal
grazing lands--more than one-fourth of all privately owned grazing lands--are
in soil capability classes I through III and therefore could be used to
produce crops in the future if needed.
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