LB 3-14 - Economic modeling with conservation practices and management for rangeland soil health

Background/Question/Methods:

Management of rangelands is exceedingly important to ensure that these ecosystems, and the communities built around them, may prosper. In California, rangelands cover approximately 38 million consist of private and public rangelands that are owned or managed by ranchers. Soil health is crucial to healthy and productive rangeland systems, and the economic viability of ranching operations that steward these rangelands. California’s agriculture is valued at almost $50 billion total, with $3.19 billion valued in beef cattle ranching operations. Soil health and forage production are tightly linked. Three regions of California are modeled to reflect how increasing forage production can influence financial outcomes on private cattle ranches. The three regions are the Coast, the San Joaquin Valley, and the Sacramento Valley. Information was gathered that includes financial data for assessing probable livestock production and costs, land resources and forage supply, and ranch characteristics which include herd type, size, and forage requirements. A representative ranch for each region was developed based on the average regional ranch characteristics including herd size, calving rate, replacement rate, percentage of heifers kept, cow to bull ratio, and fixed expenses.

Results/Conclusions:

A representative ranch for each of the three regions was developed based on the average regional ranch characteristics including herd size, calving rate, replacement rate, percentage of heifers kept, cow to bull ratio, and fixed expenses, using enterprise budgets created by University of California. Conservation practices including prescribed grazing and brush control were incorporated, using county-level data provide by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation for counties within the three regions. Vegetation production information came from the Rangeland Production Monitoring System. Soil data was provided by Point Blue Conservation Science and the Web Soil Survey. We used a 35-year ranch economic model to track changes and outcomes as the representative ranches for each of the three regions moved through the simulated scenarios. Without having the direct relationships of management, soil characteristics, and forage production, this project identifies trends over the 35-year model. Across 3 regions, improvements in forage spanned a range of $695 to $988 in increased economic viability. However, due to data limitations, it was not possible to quantify a statistically significant relationship between soil carbon and forage production.