Project Overview
Information Products
Commodities
- Animals: bovine
- Animal Products: meat
Practices
- Animal Production: feed/forage, free-range, grazing management, grazing - rotational, range improvement, rangeland/pasture management, stocking rate
- Education and Training: decision support system, networking, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research, workshop
- Farm Business Management: land access
- Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, carbon sequestration, habitat enhancement, indicators, soil stabilization
- Production Systems: agroecosystems, holistic management
- Soil Management: organic matter, soil analysis, soil chemistry, soil quality/health
- Sustainable Communities: local and regional food systems, partnerships, public participation, social networks, sustainability measures
Abstract:
Conceptualizing cattle as partners in conservation would be a win-win for the livestock and rangeland conservation sectors, resolving the [often] paradoxical objectives of food production and natural resource management. For millennia the ecology of grasslands, characterized by high quality forage and profuse biodiversity, has supported large herds of herbivores. In turn herbivory has contributed to the maintenance of those ecosystems. However, a debate over the use of government-owned rangelands for cattle grazing is ongoing at local, national, and global levels. Amplifying the issue for conservationists and livestock producers alike is the notion that more land is used to raise cattle than is used for all other agricultural production combined.
To learn more about the collaborative grazing management that occurs across Colorado’s rangelands, we conducted a holistic investigation of four partnerships between private ranchers and government-owned land managers. We evaluated three system components - ecological, economic, and social - to answer our overarching question: How do strategic grazing partnerships on multi-use public landscapes achieve the dual goals of assisting land management agencies with natural resource conservation, and ranchers with maintaining sustainable beef production?
Themes we explored included soil health, plant community, forage quality, ecosystem services, and the human dimension (socio-cultural values). Results will be used to support collaborating ranchers and government-owned lands agencies by informing how cattle may be managed as tools for conservation while producing a sustainable food product. We also created an integrated agent-based model to broaden applicability to collaborative rangeland management efforts in other regions.
Project objectives:
The following objectives incorporated variables relevant to the model of sustainability. The three ecological objectives included soil health, plant community, and forage quality studies. Soil organic carbon and nitrogen, water infiltration, plant community composition and biodiversity, and forage quality are well established indicators of rangeland health and sustainable agriculture. In a time when climate change is an imminent threat, carbon sequestration and nitrogen management also provide solution-focused strategy for mitigation. The socio-economic objective investigated stakeholders’ valuation of ecosystem services produced by collaborative conservation. Evaluating socio-cultural values as drivers of decision-making provides a method of emerging importance in sustainability science.
- Examine the outcomes of collaborative grazing management on soil health as measured by levels of a) organic carbon, b) nitrogen, and c) water infiltration, over a 2-year period.
- Examine the outcomes of collaborative grazing management on plant community as measured by a) plant species diversity (richness and evenness), and b) composition (functional groups), over a 2-year period.
- Examine the outcomes of collaborative grazing management on forage nutritive quality as measured by a) crude protein, b) acid detergent fiber, and c) neutral detergent fiber, over a 2-year period.
- Identify and evaluate the unique sets of values and perceptions toward ecosystem services among collaborative grazing management stakeholders and investigate how the prioritization of these values drive dynamic decision-making.