August 17, 1996
Magic Valley AG Weekly 
Farm Bureau paints wrong picture 

In two recent columns the Idaho Farm Bureau has attacked Idaho Watersheds Project for bidding against public land ranchers for Idaho school endowment land grazing leases, and for influencing management of federal agencies away from traditional abusive livestock practices on public lands. It also has been suggested that Idaho Watersheds Project's bidding could result in the elimination of 60 percent of the beef industry in Idaho. Idaho Watersheds Project is flattered to think that our organization is so close to shutting down public lands ranching in Idaho; however, we know only too well that the reality of livestock production in Idaho is remarkably different from the picture the Farm Bureau paints. 

In the past the Farm Bureau has claimed that as many as 80 percent of the beef and sheep livestock in Idaho spend part of the year on public lands. Now, they are saying that it is estimated at 60 percent although they provide no substantiation. The truth is that public lands provide only 13 percent of the forage consumed by beef cattle and sheep in Idaho in any one year. Even if all public lands ranching were stopped tomorrow, the livestock business in Idaho would make up the modest forage dislocation in two or three years on private lands. If cheap public land grass is so important to public land ranchers, I wonder why they and the Farm Bureau are so unwilling to protect their interests by bidding at auction instead of whining to the legislature. Perhaps they haven't heard yet about the free market.

The Farm Bureau does not want the people of Idaho to know accurate facts and figures on the economic and environmental impacts of mismanaged livestock use on public lands. While the Farm Bureau would have us believe that all rural Idaho towns are dependent on public land ranchers for their economic existence, this is absolutely untrue. There is not one town in Idaho that would suffer as much as an economic hiccough if the federal and state lands in their area were shut permanently to livestock use.

Even in so-called cattle dependent areas as Clark, Owyhee, Custer, and Lemhi Counties, livestock ranching, of all kinds provides on average less than 3 percent of the jobs. In the state of Idaho, public lands ranching provides only one sixth of 1 percent of total employment. The continued economic existence of most public lands ranchers is dependent on a job in town for someone in the family without which they would go out of business. It would be refreshing if the Idaho Farm Bureau would start being honest about the real economic impacts of public lands ranching.

The Farm Bureau also blames environmental, anti-grazing non-profits "for influencing the BLM into permitting large wildfires which threaten and destroy power poles, crops, and fences." The long-term reality in southern Idaho has been that many public land fires have been set by ranchers to destroy non-forage plants like sagebrush in the expectation that the federal agencies would replace them with crested wheatgrass and other exotic alien grasses which cattle will eat. Even the prevalence of cheat grass - a tremendous fire hazard - in lower elevations in Idaho is a result of abusive overgrazing of public lands for over 100 years by both sheep and cattle. Perhaps public land ranchers should be held accountable and be asked to pay for all the damage they have caused to our public lands. Idaho Watersheds Project knows that there are concerned ranchers who are changing their livestock management on public lands, and who want to improve hunting and fishing opportunities. Their efforts are undermined by the radical and extremist voice of the Idaho Farm Bureau which seeks only to keep the old destructive ways of abusing our shared public lands.

JON MARVEL President, Idaho Watersheds Project