Beltsville, MD – When federal environmental regulators cut his herd sizes to protect an endangered fish, Arizona rancher Rich Collins got busy. With three other ranchers and armed with a USDA SARE farmer/rancher grant, Collins installed new irrigation pipe, built fences and developed rotational grazing plans. Intensive monitoring helped them document improvements to the rangeland and riparian areas.
“The riparian areas have come back amazingly and the uplands have improved,” Collins says. “Monitoring showed we were in compliance…and helped us make management decisions, too.”
Rangeland Management Strategies, a free 16-page bulletin published by the Sustainable Agriculture Network, features innovative SARE-funded research on creating and sustaining a healthy range. Throughout, researchers and ranchers like Collins share goals and successes in winter and multi-species grazing, managing forage and other vegetation and protecting riparian areas.
Rangeland Management Strategies is the latest of a series of publications that feature the most creative research funded by SARE. Preview or download the entire publication at http://www.sare.org/publications/rangeland.htm.
To order print copies, visit www.sare.org/Webstore, call 301/504-5411 or email san_assoc@sare.org. Agricultural educators may place orders for print copies in quantity at no cost.
“Rangeland Management Strategies” was published by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. SARE is a program of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), USDA, and works with producers, researchers and educators to promote farming systems that are profitable, environmentally sound and good for communities. SAN operates under a cooperative agreement between CSREES and the University of Vermont and the University of Maryland to develop and disseminate information about sustainable agriculture. For more information about SARE grant opportunities and other SAN resources, visit www.sare.org.
