by Jim Bailey, Retired Wildlife Biologist
The recent Montana Farm Bureau’s
motto is “We care for the country.” It’s marvelously
ambiguous. “Care” has two meanings in this context; and
“country” has even more. I believe most Montana owners of
agricultural land, including stockmen, embrace both meanings of
“care” in this motto. I am not so sure what they mean by
“country”.
I know a rancher who lives in the house
where he was born. His “caring” for the land has deep, personal
roots. I can only imagine how growing up, playing, working, and
seeking to understand, all in one place for a lifetime can develop
connections, wrapped in memories, that evoke such caring for the
land.
Likewise, many ranchers and farmers
trace their roots back through two or more generations of family
traditions. Caring involves an obligation to grandparents and
great-grandparents who labored in times that were tougher and
lonelier than today. The land and its family history must become
inseparable parts of the same whole.
My rancher friend also takes “care”
of the land, hoping to pass it along as a productive resource to his
son. He observes how stocking rates and pasture rotations affect the
grass and the soil. These days, the ranch barely supports a single
family, and his wife’s part-time job in town is needed, at least in
some years. There will not be better times ahead for his family if
the productive capacity of the ranch is degraded.
But, like the rest of us, all ranchers
and farmers are not alike. I don’t know if they are new on the
ground, but some are ready to abuse the land and its future. Some
are absentee landowners seeing the farm or ranch only as a capital
investment, a tool to be bought, used and sold to maximize often
short-term profit. Very large land holdings of individuals or
corporations have been given the name “industrial agriculture”,
emphasizing their difference from the family farm that Willie Nelson
praised in public concerts. Whatever the group, ranchers, hunters,
the driving public, liberals, conservatives, etc., the bad apples
among us are often used unjustifiably to portray and vilify an entire
group.
Likely, that is part of the reason for
ranchers and farmers being so sensitive to their public image. Their
abundant and sometimes costly use of mottos such as “We care for
the country.” and “Undaunted stewardship” suggests a degree of
paranoia over being misunderstood. But public mistrust and
misunderstanding persist.
While I’ve cited two ways to “care”
for the country, I wonder what “country” the Farm Bureau embraces
in “We care for the country.”
When I was a youngster growing up in an
Illinois city, my parents would sometimes pass the weekend taking a
ride in “the country”. Our city was surrounded by mostly
agricultural land. In those days, this land included a few remaining
woodlots with fox squirrels to be hunted in fall, and Osage fencerows
where wild grapes still grew and pheasants took refuge in winter. A
few rivers still held fish – mostly bluegills and bullheads – to
be angled for in summer. We also scavenged for freshwater clams, the
shells of which would become ash trays in my father’s shop. Though
infrequent, those trips to the country played a large part in tilting
me toward forestry in college and ultimately to a career in wildlife
biology. Today, few woodlots remain and the hedgerows are gone from
that rich land that once supported a diverse tallgrass prairie.
Mostly, there is only corn and soybeans, except in winter when
plowing turns the world to black.
But I digress. In this sense,
“country” is the open space outside of urbia and suburbia. It’s
the different kind of place that we city folk appreciate and wish to
see preserved for all sorts of reasons, including Sunday drives in
the country. Many of the reasons involve some form of escape from
the monotony of so many shared tasks in town. I guess the Montana
Farm Bureau wants us to believe that without agriculture, at least
some of this country would be converted to something else. The
rationale is used to defend all sorts of activities promoted to
benefit and retain agriculture and livestock. It has merit in some
places – near cities and in areas with attractive recreational
value where development of second homes is likely. However, the idea
is often overstated in reference to many less attractive locations.
“Country” might also refer to “our
country”, the good old US of A. In this sense, caring for the
country is a patriotic endeavor. Obviously, the nation needs food,
and caring for the country, in this sense, implies we shall always
eat well. Arguments to maintain federal subsidies to agriculture and
livestock have been bolstered by claims that such subsidies are
needed to keep our country strong. It’s largely a self-serving
argument. Nationwide, most agricultural production comes from lands
where subsidies are least needed. Moreover, the quality of food
produced has sometimes been sacrificed in order to maximize farm
profits. Still, the Montana Farm Bureau might be trying to influence
the rest of us by appealing to our patriotism.
“Country” may also refer to the
“collective harmony” of the land with its productive soils, clean
streams and all its wildlife and wild plants, as described by Aldo
Leopold. It is country as intended in “wild country”. However,
much farm and grazing land is domesticated and the rest is only
semi-wild at best. Often agricultural interests take credit for
maintaining wildlife habitat and wild country. This claim reveals a
limited understanding of the complexities of habitat and of the
meaning of “wild”.
Leopold distinguished clearly between
country and mere land. Land is an economic resource. It may grow
beef, wheat, mortgages, and – hopefully – happy farm and ranch
families. Along the way, it may absorb federal subsidies, pesticides
and artificial fertilizers. The land’s biota may be limited and
monotonous. Not so with country, where all the native plants,
animals and invertebrates coevolve with the rocks and the weather.
Leopold noted that poor land may be very rich country.
The Farm Bureau may not distinguish
between land and country in the manner of Leopold. Frequent demands
to manage Yellowstone National Park more like a ranch suggest this is
so. Likewise, the long lists of wildlife species and native plants
that are unwelcome or ignored on productive farms and ranches
indicate that the Farm Bureau promotes caring for the land, but not
necessarily for the country.
Wildlife species that are seldom
“cared” for on the farm or ranch include coyotes, wolves, bears,
mountain lions, bison, beaver, prairie dogs and ground squirrels.
Elk might be tolerated in modest numbers. Deer are more acceptable,
but not too many. Pronghorn are OK, except in spring wheat fields.
Abundant fencing may minimize the number of pronghorn anyway.
Without prairie dogs, there are no black-footed ferrets and few, if
any, burrowing owls and swift foxes. For sheep ranchers, nearby wild
bighorn are unacceptable - to avoid any controversy generated by
death of the bighorn due to disease carried by domestic sheep.
Removing any of these species has cascading effects on many other
species.
Boosting economic production from farm
or ranch land always involves practices that monotonize the
vegetation. The obvious though unintended result is a loss of many
native plant species, especially broad-leaved forbs. Whole plant
communities, such as sagebrush steppe, willow thickets, marshes and
riparian woodlands are replaced. Wildlife dependent on these
communities, or needing a diversity of plant communities to fulfill
their seasonal needs, are diminished or eliminated. This is
especially true for bird species including prairie-chickens, sage and
sharp-tailed grouse, piping and mountain plovers, long-billed curlew,
sedge wrens, sharp-tailed sparrows and several others.
Most water management in Montana is
designed to benefit agriculture. The Farm Bureau opposes legislation
requiring minimum stream flows. Streams are dewatered to the
detriment of native fishes and surrounding riparian habitat. Arctic
grayling are the most notable casualty. Other fishes such as pearl
dace and sturgeon chub have been diminished along with their roles in
wildlife food chains.
Given the above, I must conclude that
the Farm Bureau cares for the land, but not necessarily for the
country. But that’s OK. Private land rights are enshrined in law
and in the state constitution, and I concur. However, about 35% of
Montana is federal or state land, owned jointly by people of the
nation, or at least, the state. It has been said that these lands
should be managed “for the greatest good of the greatest number, in
the long run.” Montana agricultural organizations, including the
Farm Bureau, have been active in politics to determine how our public
lands shall be used. They have been successful in gaining special
access for using our public lands for private gains; and they limit
public options for using the public’s land. This is especially
true of the livestock industry.
One may argue that private uses of the
public lands generate public benefits. Most state lands leased to
agriculture for reasonable fees produce funding for state schools.
However, federal grazing rates are so low that net public benefits
from federal grazing management are negative. Moreover, agriculture
has initiated Montana laws that prohibit state participation in
wildlife programs on public, even federal, lands whenever such
programs pose a possible threat to agricultural or livestock
production – on the public or nearby private lands, and “nearby”
is never defined. In response, federal agencies have allowed this
private control over public land to continue. One result is that we
have cattle on most of our federal public lands, but we have no wild
bison. Montana law specifies that the Fish, Wildlife & Parks
Department must allow livestock trailing across its wildlife areas,
may not charge for the forage used, and may not even analyze the
ecological impacts.
These and other examples demonstrate
that the public/private balance for using our public lands is often
skewed toward private benefits at public costs. Agriculture is an
important industry, practiced on most of the Montana landscape where
economic necessities and profit motives are appropriate. But uses of
our public lands should be skewed toward public, not private,
benefits. Diversity is the hallmark of democracy and the bedrock of
freedom. Much of our public land should be used to produce rich
country, as Leopold defined it.
We’re glad the Farm Bureau cares for
its lands. We, the public, care just as deeply for our lands, that
is, our country.
Jim Bailey, December 2012
Retired wildlife biologist
