Lowered grazing fees aid ranchers

WASHINGTON - For Crook County rancher John Breese, making a profit can come down to a few hundred dollars.

As owner of the 8,000-acre Dixie Meadow Co. near Prineville, Breese breeds cows for their calves, which requires him to use public lands part of the year so his cattle can graze.

He is one of many independent ranchers in Central Oregon who have seen the cost of doing business go up in the last few years due to higher energy prices and other price hikes.

"Savings one place are eaten up someplace else," Breese said. "You're usually just trying to cut costs one way or the other."

That is why Breese was happy to hear the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service last week announced they will lower the federal fee for grazing on public lands from $1.56 to $1.35 per unit, its lowest amount in three years and the minimum the government can charge. The lower price takes effect March 1.

The fee reduction was a response, at least in part, to the financial squeeze being experienced by ranchers like Breese, according to BLM spokesman Tom Gorey.

"The market is not as robust as it was the previous year or in some previous years," Gorey said. "Generally, from a ranching perspective it's good when the fee goes up," because it means profits are strong and business costs are down.

Under the government's fee system, the price cannot fall below $1.35 per animal unit month, or AUM, which is the estimated amount of forage needed to feed one cow and her calf, one horse or five sheep or goats for one month. The price is calculated through a formula established by Congress in 1978.

Breese uses about 100 AUMs for two months of public land grazing annually - about 5 percent of his annual budget - so the lower rate won't result in substantial savings.

But for others who rely more heavily upon public lands, some as much as five to seven months a year, the fee drop could mean significant savings.

"The margins of our profit are so small that any little wiggle room can make or break what's happening on the ranch," Breese said. "When those rates come down that makes it so much easier to say maybe we can put in that fence, or maybe we can put in that water development system."

But critics of the grazing fees pricing policies say that the prices are set too low, providing a substantial subsidy to livestock operators at the expense of the ecosystems of these public lands.

"For every dollar coming in, there's at least five dollars of taxpayers' money going out the window to support this program," said Bill Marlett, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association in Bend. "From the taxpayers' standpoint, it's a rip-off and it's not fair."

Marlett conceded that increases in grazing fees likely would put a lot of ranchers out of business, but added that ranchers' federal subsidies should not be at the cost of the fish and wildlife supported by the habitats in the publics.

"Most of our streams in Eastern Oregon, like 90 percent, are not meeting water quality standards because of livestock grazing in large part," he said. "As cows congregate along streams, they eat the vegetation that gives shade to the streams and that keeps them cool in the summer."

The federal grazing fee is at least four times lower than that of the state's grazing fee of $5.80. Oregon officials explain that a different formula is used in calculating their fee.

A 2004 report from the Government Accountability Office showed that the federal grazing fee program ran at around a $123 million deficit each year and estimated that a fee of about $7.64 would have to be charged in order for the government to recoup its costs. Breese said that a lot of public perceptions regarding cattle grazing are related to old, outdated practices and don't take into account advances made in technology and methods.

"I think there are a lot of people who'll see cattle on government land and they automatically think there is a significant negative impact without seeing the long history of that land," Breese said.

Steven Ross Johnson can be reached at 202-661-0151 or at bendbulletin@medillnewsdc.com.
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