By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

It seems rather an interesting dichotomy that while advocates for destroying animal agriculture in other parts of the country are focused on banning forms of confinement – advocates for destroying Nevada animal agriculture are doing so because of the way the majority of our animals wander around.  As California and other Western states have had to contend with ballot-box initiatives to outlaw the use of animal husbandry tools which protect and house livestock – Nevada ranchers continue to face court room directives which seek to prevent responsible land management decisions from allowing livestock grazing to make use of renewable forage resources.

Over two-thirds of Nevada agriculture fits into the cow-calf, beef production category and nearly all of that entails grazing on lands managed by federal agencies (the Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service).  When 90 percent of the land in Nevada is under federal government land management the alternatives for doing otherwise is rather limited.

Evolving into the system of using the land and fitting into niche of this type of production came about because of the climate and ecology of the state.  To get where Nevada ranchers and land managers have gotten today has taken over a century of living on the land and figuring out ways to make it work.  Anti-livestock grazing advocates and the Idaho judge they rely on are attempting to destroy the ability to use these lands, funding their activities while they go with financing from the court they bring their cases through.

Challenges presented before the courts are not raised on the basis of inappropriate livestock management actions (the raping of the landscape by over-stocking and over-grazing)…the court cases are aimed at the federal land management agencies and whether all the “I’s” got dotted and the “T’s” got crossed in their bureaucratic systems of exercising their controls over livestock management.  In a world where you’ve got to have a permit to operate your business – bureaucratic processes become more important than what happens on the land. 

The decision processes used for making the land management bureaucratic resource decisions (within their own framework of manuals, procedures and processes) has been further formalized into the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 

While a normal person would consider that the questions of whether good resource decisions have been made and responsible livestock management practices carried out – the NEPA-inspired court cases come down to whether the land-manager made the decision within the context of the requirements of how the decision was made, appropriately documenting all the details regarding the decision as they go.

This same judge and these same “champions” of the public lands were able to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to redo their decision on whether Sage Grouse should be listed under the Endangered Species Act.  The basis for that reconsideration was the determination of the documentation of who was in the room when the decision was made – and who wasn’t.  (And, we’re supposed to believe that science somehow matters when it comes to Endangered Species…)

Livestock Not On The Range Also In The Cross-hairs:

In addition to needing to support and work for the ability of responsible use of public lands for multiple uses like livestock grazing, we also need to be ever wary of the interest that the Humane Society of The U.S. is taking in Nevada’s dairy industry.  Early in the current Nevada Legislative session an HSUS lobbyist from California came calling in the Nevada legislature, seeking to initiate a bill for “downer cows”.

Inspired from the results of the under-cover video camera coverage they’ve been able to get on the network evening news and the internet You-Tube, the pursuit of forcing their ideas on what can’t be done includes provisions they’d like to get into Nevada law on livestock handling, especially at auction markets.  The law they sought to write, interestingly enough, didn’t just deal with livestock handling at auction markets and included a number of animal management activities which attempt to extend their intrusion into areas that they wish to reach. 

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a bill draft available for their use this session, but most would expect that in two years additional attempts will be made.

Instead of livestock, this session, the project they are working on deals with dogs and how they might be tied up or kept in a pen.  Also suggested, as an amendment to a Senate anti-dog-fighting legislative proposal, were HSUS proposed limitations on breeding dogs.

It’s really not so much that the general public has gotten so far from the foundational understanding of where their food comes from that they don’t understand the methods of production used in caring and managing animal agriculture.  It’s more that the distance has made them more available for the anti-livestock advocates to take advantage of as they promote their agenda.

Standing up and communicating, as advocates for livestock production – whether the animals are in pens or roaming the range – needs our best effort and dedicated attention.