How low can the federal government go with grazing fees?
    Rock-bottom, according to both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management in separate announcements last week. And according to a conservation group, it costs more to feed a hamster than a cow/calf pair on federal forests and grasslands.
    The Federal grazing fee for Western public lands managed by the Forest Service and BLM in Wyoming and western states will be $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM) in 2008. The BLM fee remains constant from 2007, while the Forest Service fee drops from $1.37 in 2007. The fee is the lowest it can go according to a formula set by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act. The fee decreased from $2.36 per AUM in 1980.
    The BLM administers nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases, while the Forest Service works with more than 8,000 permit.
    “Adjusted for inflation since 1980, the new cost to graze a cow and her calf is worth about 54-cents in constant 1980 dollars” said Jon Marvel, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project (WWP). “It costs more than that to feed a hamster, and it’s not fouling streams, ruining wildlife habitat, or accelerating erosion as livestock do. This is a huge hand out to public land ranchers. If the fee had been adjusted for inflation, today’s rate would be $5.94 per AUM.”
Pro ranch
    Jim Magagna, executive director for the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, defended the formula, saying it reflects the dramatically higher costs of doing business, faced by Wyoming ranchers. “Energy costs are higher, as are feed costs, such as hay or corn,” said Magagna. He said conservation groups have been less critical about the grazing fee formula in recent years, with a shift to questioning whether there should even be grazing on public lands.
    Magagna acknowledged that various studies have found that grazing fee permits generate less money than is expended in administering the FS and BLM grazing programs. That’s not fair, he said, because range conservationists do more than administer grazing permits. Increasingly, they’re spending more and more time working on National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) documents, having to do with the energy boom in the West.
    John Etchepere, director of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, said “The $1.35 is livable. The real question is will our ranchers be able to go out with economically feasible numbers this spring and summer.”
Weight gain
        Using figures from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Western Watersheds has found that the average weight of cows increased from 1,050 pounds in 1984 to 1,242 pounds in 2004, or an increase of 23 percent, while the forage consumption of their calves is not counted. If the current weight and forage consumption of cows and their calves were counted, the actual forage consumed is over 40 percent greater than the agencies charge for, further devaluing the fee recovered. These “super-sized” cows are eating more forage than their smaller predecessors, raising the profits for the livestock industry and reducing the amount of vegetation available for wildlife.
    “No one is surprised that a government program runs at a deficit,” said Greta Anderson, WWP’s Arizona Director.     “What people may be surprised to know is that this de facto subsidy only benefits a very small percentage of ranchers who have public lands permits. So why should we subsidize this marginal industry? What is the benefit to the broader America public to be giving away the bounty and biological integrity of our public lands while degrading our watersheds, water supplies and wildlife habitat? ”
Formula facts
    The formula used for calculating the grazing fee, established by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act, has continued under a presidential Executive Order issued in 1986. Under that order, the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, and any increase or decrease cannot exceed 25 percent of the previous year's level. An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month.
    The annually adjusted grazing fee is computed by using a 1966 base value of $1.23 per AUM for livestock grazing on public lands in Western states. The figure is then adjusted according to three factors:
    • Current private grazing land lease rates,
    • Beef cattle prices, and the
    • Cost of livestock production.
    In effect, the fee rises, falls, or stays the same based on market conditions, with livestock operators paying more when conditions are better and less when conditions have declined. Without the requirement that the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, this year's fee would have dropped below one dollar per AUM because of declining beef cattle prices and increased production costs from the previous year.
Boost fees
    “Western Watersheds Project would like the land management agencies to revisit the grazing fee formula and adjust the base rate to reflect inflation, the increased weights of livestock, and the ecological costs of maintaining the program.” Greta Anderson said, “Given the massive budgetary shortfalls in the agencies and the scaling back of staff and services that is occurring, recovering a fair fee on our public grazing lands is a perfectly reasonable goal.”