Image: Video capture from www.securebeef.org/beef-producers/public-land-grazing/
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall commented today on a memorandum of understanding between USDA and the Department of the Interior to strengthen public lands grazing and the partnership between ranchers and the agencies.
“Farmers and ranchers appreciate USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for their work to improve access to public lands for grazing. Public lands offer quality grazing grounds for livestock, which in turn reduces wildfire risk and contributes to the vitality of rural communities across the West.
“The MOU will reduce delays, enhance transparency and streamline the approval of grazing permits to help ranchers raise livestock to meet the protein needs of America’s families.”
Building on the USDA’s recently released Grazing Action Plan, the agreement formalizes collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to ensure more efficient, transparent and responsive grazing management across federal lands.
More than 20,000 ranchers and farmers across 28 states graze on federal lands. The FS and the BLM are responsible for a total of 240 million acres of federal rangelands. The two agencies together administer more than 23,000 permits and leases held by ranchers who graze their livestock on approximately 29,000 allotments.
“Public lands ranchers are resilient by nature, but we still need significant relief from the burdensome federal regulations that make it harder to do our jobs every day. This MOU will make it easier to ranch on public lands and will help improve the health of western landscapes,” said Public Lands Council President and Colorado permittee Tim Canterbury.
The Public Lands Council represents 22,000 cattle and sheep producers who operate with federal grazing permits in the West.
Sources: AFBF, USDA, NCBA-PLC
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