- Author: Stephanie Larson
- Author: Michelle Nozzari
- Editor: J. M.
Updated Sept 17, 2020 to add link. Visit: MatchGraze.com
As previously mentioned in the September 2018 issue of the Farm Bureau newsletter, the frequency, intensity, and size of wildfires in northern California have increased. This trend is alarming given that California's fire season is expected to become longer and start earlier. The fire season started in early June this year as Sonoma County experienced smoke from Sand Fire in Yolo County. To mitigate future fire, the County of Sonoma has adopted a new hazardous vegetation abatement ordinance which mandates that parcels of 5 acres or less must maintain defensible space around all buildings/structures and remove all vegetation that poses a fire risk. As policymakers in our communities and across the state continue to explore initiatives to prevent wildfire, the agricultural community can demonstrate real impacts in reducing fire fuel through managing existing vegetation on our working landscapes - forest and rangelands. We need to educate the public on the importance of managing these valuable landscapes using a multitude of tools, especially grazing. The extent to which the public understands fire risks and accepts the adoption of all potential tools for forest and rangeland health will increase the likelihood of potential collaborative management strategies imperative to community resiliency.
Grazing is a cost-effective vegetation management alternative that works best in cases where other options are impractical and financially ineffective. Specifically, targeted grazing can be more cost-effective on landscapes that are too steep, rocky, or remote for conventional vegetation management (like mowing or chemical treatment), or in the urban-wildland interface where burning is not an option. Targeted grazing is the application of a specific kind of livestock at a determined season, duration, and intensity to accomplish defined vegetation or landscape goals. This concept has been around for decades and has taken many names, including prescribed grazing and managed herbivory. The major difference between good grazing management and targeted grazing is that targeted grazing refocuses outputs of grazing from livestock production to vegetation and landscape enhancement. The concept of a target requires that one has a clear image on which to focus and then aims something (i.e., an arrow) at the target to accomplish the desired outcome. In the case of targeted grazing, the land manager must have a clear vision of the desired plant community and landscape, and the livestock manager must have the skill to aim livestock at the target to accomplish land management goals.
As mentioned in the June 2019 Farm Bureau newsletter (Quackenbush), sheep grazing is being applied on lands throughout the county to help reduce fire danger. Targeted grazing is a very different business model than simply grazing for livestock production. Effective targeted grazing focuses on impacting target vegetation at exactly the right time for specific landscape or vegetation goals. Traditional livestock production, on the other hand, focuses on putting weight on animals or increasing reproductive success. Traditional livestock operations generate income from the sale of animals and animal products; these operations focus on body condition and the nutritional status of the animals at specific production stages. Targeted grazers generate income from vegetation management services; these operations may accept a drop in body condition or reproductive success to achieve desired impacts to low-quality forage as long as this service is paid for. Both models can reduce fire fuels; no one model is better than the other.
Last month, UC Cooperative Extension and SRJC Agriculture and Natural Resources Department offered a grazing school at Shone Farm. Landowners and targeted grazers learned how to implement targeted grazing on local working landscapes. Participants gained knowledge on how to design a grazing program on their own managed lands or if they decided not to own animals, how to use this knowledge when hiring a targeted grazer. A neighborhood grazing partnership was created at the school along with new opportunities for targeted grazers.
Additionally, UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Sonoma/Marin, is creating a “Match.Graze” system which connects landowners, who have no animals, to targeted grazers, those that can bring their animals on property to perform vegetation management service. If your parcel (s) is/are greater than 50 acres, this system will be a great resource. While it is more cost-effective for target grazers to grazer larger parcels, those with smaller parcels in neighborhoods or communities can join together to have multiple parcels of varying sizes in the same geographic area receive vegetation management by the same grazer. If you want more information about the use of grazing, how to set resource goals for your rangelands, or help to find a grazer for your parcel, call the UCCE office at 707-565-2621 or complete this survey to help UCCE better meet your desire to manage vegetation to prevent future fires in Sonoma and Marin Counties. The survey can be found at www.ucanr.edu/rangeland.
- Author: Stephanie Larson
- Author: Reid Johnsen
- Editor: J. M.
Eight months after devastating fires swept through Sonoma County, our community has rallied to an ongoing recovery. Still, the tragedy of those wildfires remains fresh in the minds of our friends and neighbors. The lives and property that were lost last year can never be replaced. As the dry season begins a new and unfortunate truth comes to mind: California is a drought-prone state, and there will always be some risk of wildfire. In Sonoma and Marin Counties, active rangeland management is one of the most important actions that can be taken to reduce the risk of wildfire to our community.
Sonoma and Marin Counties comprise large amounts of rangeland. The key to reducing fire risk on rangeland parcels is effective management of the volume of flammable grasses, known as Residual Dry Matter (RDM), which exists on the land during the summer months. Historically, three methods have been employed to manage RDM: mowing, controlled burning, and grazing. However, mowing is rarely cost-effective at the landscape scale, and concerns over air pollution have significantly restricted the viability of controlled burning as a management technique. Grazing is the best remaining tool for RDM management, and it provides the additional social benefit of producing agricultural income.
There is only one affirmative agricultural easement in Sonoma County, Marin County has many more. Many conservation easements in Sonoma and Marin Counties have been managed by the same families for multiple generations, many have changed ownership with the easement attached. One of the primary advantages of conservation easements is that they typically allow existing agricultural practices to continue on the conserved parcel; however the economics of agriculture change over time. It might be more advantageous to sustain local agriculture, reduce fire risks, and keep our working landscapes “working” if conservation groups reassessed conversation easements written years ago. Climate change, ranching and farming economics and agricultural practices have changed and keep evolving. Agricultural operations that remain economically viable will keep our cultural heritage for generations to come.
Traditionally, when a landowner sells a conservation easement to a conservation group, the landowner receives a one-time lump sum payment in exchange for accepting permanent development restrictions on their land. It may be possible for a land trusts to manage its finances for greater returns or less risk relative to the options available to landowners.
The University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) is finalizing a research project that has examined that equivalent, alternative payment structures, such as a perpetuity or variable annual payment, could provide greater welfare to both the landowner and the conservation group. Our preliminary research findings shows that many landowners state a preference for an alternative payment structure, and that heterogeneity in those preferences is correlated with self-identification as a rancher/farmer.
In order to evaluate changing perceptions of conservation easements over time, UC Cooperative Extension of Sonoma County, is conducting a phone survey of landowners in Sonoma and Marin Counties. This brief survey is aimed at all owners of parcels greater than 50 acres that currently support livestock or have the potential to support livestock. Full participation in the survey will help UC Cooperative Extension better meet the needs of the agricultural communities in Sonoma and Marin Counties. If you receive a call, your participation will be greatly appreciated. It's your opportunity to help us direct the future of conservation easements in Sonoma and Marin Counties.
- Author: Stephanie Larson
Carbon is the energy currency of most biological systems, including agricultural ecosystems. All agricultural production originates from the process of plant photosynthesis, which uses sunshine to combine carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air with water and minerals from the soil to produce plant material, both above and below ground.
Agriculture is the ONE sector that can
transform from a net emitter of CO2
to a net sequestered of CO2
There is no other human-managed realm with this potential. Common agricultural practices, including driving a tractor, tilling the soil, grazing, result in the return of C02 to the air. However, all farming is “carbon farming” because all agricultural production depends upon plant photosynthesis to move carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into the plant, where it is transformed into agricultural projects, whether food, flora, fuel or fiber.
Agriculture only contributes 9% of the carbon dioxide emissions in the US.1 Agriculture, particularly grassland/rangelands, have a great potential to function as a sponge for carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. The maximum capacity of soil to store organic carbon is determined by soil type (% clay). However, management practices, implemented to maximize plant growth and minimize losses of organic carbon from soil, will result in greatest organic carbon storage in soil. Keeping working lands “working” can result in carbon stored long term (decades to centuries or more) beneficially in soils in a process called soil carbon sequestration; long-term carbon storage (decades to centuries or more) in soils.
Keeping working lands “working” can result in
carbon stored long term
Rangelands: There are 23 million hectares of rangeland in California alone, and it is the largest land type on our planet today. Management of rangelands, through grazing, can lead to increased forage production, longer growing season and a potential conversion to a perennial system. Implementation of practices can meet both ranch goals while increasing the carbon sequestration on rangelands. Grazing stimulates plant growth through a variety of mechanisms, resulting in increased carbon capture by the grazed ecosystem. The potential to increase the amount of carbon held in rangeland ecosystems or to minimize losses of existing carbon offer landowners an opportunity to manage their lands in ways that contribute to climate change mitigation by encouraging carbon sequestration. This can be done by increasing carbon inputs and uptake, decreasing or preventing carbon releases, or both.
How to increase carbon stored: A practice, known as “Carbon Farming” involves implementing practices that are known to improve the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and converted to plant material and/or soil organic matter. Carbon farming is successful when carbon gains resulting from enhanced land management and/or conservation practices exceed carbon losses. Management practices that increase the amount of photosynthetically-captured carbon held, or “sequestered”, in long-term carbon pools on the farm or ranch, include soil organic matter, perennial plant roots and standing woody biomass. This results in a direct reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Loren Poncia, Stemple Creek Ranch, has implemented a carbon farming plan to not only sequester carbon but enhance the quality and quality of his forage. Loren owns a grass based beef operation, and his animals are born, raised and finished on grass. He needs to supply adequate nutrition for his cattle have proper growth to his meet market goals. As part of his carbon plan, Loren implemented a grazing management plan, to promote perennial grasses growth. Perennials have deeper root systems, and will store more carbon, deeper in the soil. Loren checks the quality of his forage using a spectrometer, measuring sugar levels in the grasses, (Figure 1).
Expanding Carbon Markets: There is a growing body of work suggesting that significant amounts of carbon can be stored in soil. This is particularly true on rangeland, which houses approximately 30 percent of terrestrial carbon stocks in addition to a substantial amount of aboveground carbon in trees, plants and grasses, and can hold carbon over longer periods of time.2 Expanding investment in programs, such as Carbon Farming and the Healthy Soils Program, can support agricultural practices that add to these stocks, creating potential markets to pay ranchers for sequestering carbon.3 Moreover, given the well-established relationship between soil organic matter (of which an average of 50 - 56% is carbon) and the ability of soils to retain water,4 such a market could contribute to watershed function, natural groundwater recharge and overall water provision.
The scientific consensus surrounding the relation between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and global climate change has indicated a clear need for the US to find new ways to reduce emissions of these gases and the concentrations in the atmosphere to avoid significant and potentially catastrophic environmental changes. Land management for carbon sequestration is one of many opportunities available to the US, more locally in California, to reduce their net emissions of GHGs, particularly CO2. Carbon-oriented management of rangelands may offer landowners the opportunity to obtain a new source of income while simultaneously helping to mitigate climate change. The payment for ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, may be a potential solution to climate change.
1 EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions
2 FAO, 2009; Flynn, A., et al., 2009; White, R., et al., 2000.
3 De Gryze, S., et al., 2009.
4 Huntington, 2007; Pribyl, 2010; Rawls et al., 2003.
- Author: Reid Johnsen
- Author: Stephanie Larson
- Posted by: Karen Giovannini
Rangeland owners in the Bay Area face substantial pressure to develop their land. The short term financial gains from developing rangeland for vineyards or residential construction can be very large. In Sonoma and Marin Counties several conservation groups, including the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, are dedicated to preserving rangeland and the cultural and environmental amenities that only open space can provide. The most common instrument for rangeland preservation is a conservation easement. The University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE), in partnership with UC Berkeley researchers, is currently engaged in a project that explores the
possibility of simultaneously expanding rangeland conservation and
increasing rancher welfare through the use of
novel conservation easement payment structures,
including annuities and variable
Payments for Ecosystems Services (PES).
A conservation easement is an agreement between a landowner and a conservation group that ensures that a parcel of land is not further developed. Conservation easements are permanent—even if the original owner decides to sell the parcel, the easement remains in force. Conservation groups typically compensate landowners by paying them a substantial one-time lump sum. Since an easement decreases the resale value of the parcel, the landowner's property tax liability is often decreased as well. Another important motivation for landowners is securing financial stability for future generations (Rilla and Solokow 2000). Conservation groups are motivated by a range of social, environmental, and ecological goals, including preservation of public goods: open space, biodiversity, soil health, and rural lifestyles (Cross et al 2010).
Under PES systems landowners are monetarily compensated for
making changes to their land management practices.
For example, the owner of a parcel of forest land might receive an annual payment in return for abstaining from logging on the parcel. Depending on the terms of the agreement, the land owner could receive the same payment amount every year, called an annuity, or a variable payment based on the level of ecosystems services that the parcel provides. A conservation group would regularly monitor the parcel to ensure that the terms of the PES agreement had not been violated. PES systems have been successfully implemented in France, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Brazil, but are relatively rare in the United States.
Many families in Sonoma and Marin Counties have been ranching on their parcels for several generations, developing deep and personal connections to their land. As a result, those landowners may have a greater interest in whether or not subsequent generations continue to ranch on their parcels. These landowners could potentially find an annuity more attractive than a lump sum, and a PES based on the amount of residual dry matter (RDM) on the parcel, which would reward ranching and active land management, might be more attractive still.
PES and annuity payment structures would expand the menu of land conservation options available in Sonoma and Marin Counties,
without restricting conservation groups' ability to continue to offer traditional lump sums. With more options comes the possibility of more land conservation, more money in the hands of ranchers, and better alignment between rancher and conservation group motivations.
For more information about this project, please contact Stephanie Larson, 707-565-2621, slarson@ucdavis.edu or Reid Johnsen, rlkj@berkeley.edu.
- Author: Stephanie Larson
Through the 1980's, 1990's, and into the early 2000's, efforts to conserve threatened and endangered (special status) species on western rangelands often meant removing livestock ranching. Research findings, demonstration results, and failed conservation efforts in recent years involving endangered species have supported the continuation of livestock ranching and the reintroduction of grazing to some rangelands that were “protected” through grazing removal. At the landscape level, research has demonstrated that livestock ranching maintains extensive, open spaces by reducing land use conversion, fragmentation of habitat, and vegetation type conversion from invasion of brush.
See Photos Below |
The relationship of grazing to some threatened and endangered species was reviewed in the U.C. Extension Report co-authored with Marin County, The Changing Role of Agriculture at the Point Reyes National Seashore. The report addresses Myrtle's silverspot butterfly (3) which inhabits coastal dunes, prairie, and scrub. Habitat suitability depends on numerous factors, but two critical components are the presence of its larval host plant, the native dog violet (Viola adunca) (4), and adult nectar plants including numerous native wildflowers, as well as common weeds such as bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare) (5) and Italian thistle (Carduus pycnocephalus) (6). Most of the Myrtle's silverspot butterflies documented at Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) have been found in areas that are grazed by cattle. Butterfly surveys done by PRNS staff in 2003 showed occurrences of Myrtle's silverspot on 13 ranches, all of which support livestock operations (Adams 2004). Recent research on Myrtle's silverspot (Adams 2004; USNPS 2007) documents that Myrtle's silverspot and cattle have co-existed for over a hundred years and that the density of the nectar sources was higher in grazed areas. Biologists studying the Myrtle's silverspot at coastal lands recorded more butterflies in grazed dunes and grasslands than in ungrazed plant communities. At time of the species' listing, the USFWS believed that cattle grazing significantly decreased the habitat quality of the Myrtle's silverspot butterfly. However, a five-year status review by USFWS found that the moderate cattle grazing regime currently used by ranchers on coastal lands did not significantly affect the distribution of Myrtle's silverspot butterfly at that site. Current threats to the Myrtle's silverspot butterfly include: urban or industrial development of any property with suitable habitat for the butterfly; poaching; small population size; the effects of reduced host and nectar plant density due to invasive plants and forbs; road mortalities during the adult flight season; and, the probable constriction of the range and distribution of this butterfly due to global climate change.
Rancher stewardship includes development and maintenance of livestock water sources, pest management, debris clean-up, and forage improvement. Ponds developed for livestock water provide half of the available habitat for the endangered tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) (9) in the San Francisco Bay Area. These results focus on California's annual rangeland, which is the habitat type where most of the special status species associated western rangelands are found.
Grazing lands provide a direct link between urban consumers and local food producers, a powerful conduit for educating the public about the importance of local food production and security. Sonoma and Marin Counties are perfect models for demonstrating how preserving family farms contribute to social, economic and ecological sustainability at local, regional and even national levels. Ranching has positive health impacts including increased food access and food security, food to local business and schools, improved health literacy and general well-being. Ranching in Sonoma and Marin Counties, albeit smaller scale, remains a local industry which provides job creation, training and business succession, and market expansion for many other ranchers and farmers.
References on file.