Agriculture Blog Posts
Post One
Agriculture is the roots and the foundation of our country. Nearly every person is involved in agriculture in some way, shape, or form. I am a fifth generation cattle rancher, and the ranch that we currently live on has been in the family for four generations.
The Barnes Ranch is located in a small ranching community called Jiggs, Nevada. My great grandpa bought the ranch when he moved from California to Nevada in 1948. He bought the 2,400 acre ranch for just $20 per acre. He started with 300 head of cows, and since then, my grandpa has continued to build on what my great grandpa started. He purchased more land surrounding the ranch to increase the number of cows the ranch could run. He also began purchasing and trading Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service allotments with surrounding ranchers. Today, the Barnes ranch is still run by the Barnes family. That consists of my grandpa, my dad, our two hired hands, and my two brothers and I help whenever we can. One historical event that affected our ranch was the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. It was signed by President Roosevelt and was essentially intended to prevent overgrazing. This act turned out to be very beneficial to our ranch. Prior to 1952, Mound Valley (the valley our ranch is in) practiced community grazing. This is where everyone with cows in the valley turns them out together and there are no fences or individual allotments. This can be very detrimental to the land as all the cows can congregate in a single location and destroy all the vegetation there. In 1952, the Nevada BLM began fencing off the public land in the valley. This had several different effects to our ranch and the ranches surrounding us. The first major effect it had was it separated ranches into their own allotments that were then monitored by the government. This forced ranchers to begin practicing better rangeland management techniques and kept each individual ranch responsible for managing their land correctly. This also increased the amount of feed available in these allotments because the government also seeded these allotments with crested wheat. All these great benefits came from the Taylor Grazing Act; however, there were also some drawbacks. The added government restrictions forced all the ranchers in the valley to adjust their management styles in order to comply with the new restrictions. They also had to learn how to rotate their cows among the allotments to effectively use them. In my opinion, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was very beneficial for Mound Valley as a whole. It improved the quality of the land, forced ranchers to begin practicing better rangeland management techniques, and ensured every ranch was responsible for their own land without hurting their neighbors land. This is just one of many historical events that has affected the Barnes Ranch. Barnes, Tom. Telephone Interview. 10 September 2016. Barnes, Harvey. Telephone Interview. 10 September 2016. "Taylor Grazing Act." U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management. Bureau of Land Management, 13 January 2011. Web. 10 September 2016. Photo Credit: Kelly Barnes
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Ag Everywhere #1
GMOs: Good or Bad?
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been a hot topic of controversy throughout the United States. Many people believe that GMOs are harmful to people and can cause serious side effects later in life. While I can see their concern, I am one hundred percent in favor of GMOs. I am in full support for GMOs for several reasons, the first is that we have been genetically altering and changing the genetics of plants and animals for over 30,000 years. I realize we haven’t been altering them to the extent that we are now, but non-the less humans have been doing this for a very long time. Genetically modifying or altering organisms can be a very simple process. For example, when a livestock producer selects a male with superior genetics to breed his females, he is influencing the genetics of the offspring through artificial selection. He is selecting the genetics he wants his offspring to have. This is done in nature when a male or female “prefers” a specific trait over another. We are just speeding the process along and molding it to fit our needs and demands. Another reason I am in favor of GMOs is because we have been using GMOs created in labs since the late 1900s. We have created crops that are resistant to pesticides and herbicides which allows producers to spray their fields and not affect the crops they are growing, but they kill the bugs or weeds infecting the plants. This can be thought of as using antibiotics in humans. Genetically modified crops were created in labs, but I believe this could have potentially been done outside the lab over time. In a Biology class I took at Utah State University, we learned about how insects can become resistant to pesticides over time. I believe this principle could have been used to create the genetically modified crops. If a pesticide was introduced to a crop at half strength and the plants that survived reproduced with each other, they would produce offspring that are more resistant to the pesticide than the ones before. If this process was replicated over and over, I believe we could have achieved the same results in a “natural” way. The third reason for why I am in support of GMO’s is because to this date, there are few if any side effects from GMO’s. There have been many different studies done trying to determine the effects of GMOs and they haven’t produced any definitive results. With that in mind, the amount of land used for agricultural production continues to decrease while the population and demand continues to increase. This means that producers are having to produce more product on fewer acres. GMOs allow producers to do just this. We can select traits that achieve the end product faster and increase production to meet the rising demand. I am definitely in favor of GMOs. I think we need to do something that allows producers to continue to meet product demand, and GMOs so far have been the answer. With that said, we need to continue to study and research the possible effects GMOs can have on humans. We also need to continue to exploit advancements in technology to determine if there are safer, easier, or better ways to produce GMOs. References: Rangel, Gabrie. "From Corgis to Corn: A Brief Look at the Long History of GMO Technology." Science in the News. Harvard University The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, August 2015. Web. 31 October 2016. Fig I: This graph shows the cost of producing conventional potatoes to genetically modified potatoes.
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The Reality of Farming Through Painting
Title: Ploughing It Under
Artist: Thomas Hart Benton
Date: 1934
Artist’s Country: United States
Size: 8 X 13 3/8 inches
Material Used: Oil on canvas
Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri in 1889. He was born into a family of politicians. His dad was a United States Congressman and his great uncle was a U.S. Senator. Thomas decided to follow a different path. He became a cartoonist for a local paper. Later, he moved to Chicago where he began to study art at the Art Institution of Chicago. Benton was enlisted in the Navy during World War I where he continued his painting by painting camouflage.
This is a simple picture, but it has a deep meaning. The first thing I noticed when I looked at his painting was how tired the mule looks. It appears like he has been dragging the plow all day. The man walking behind the plow appears to be a black sharecropper. He is bent over and tired looking as well. The colors used to paint the sky and the vegetation are bright and vibrant colors; however, he painted the sharecropper’s clothes and the mule with darker colors. This adds to the tired look of both the sharecropper and the mule. There is nothing else visible in the painting. It appears that the field goes on forever. This makes it feel like the sharecropper is completely alone.
There is also a puzzling feature in this painting. The sharecropper is plowing a field that has already been planted and is growing crops. This is odd because fields only get plowed before they are planted. I think Benton was trying to portray the life of the sharecropper. Sharecroppers were very poor and didn’t make enough money to climb out of poverty. They never received anything from the crops they planted. I believe this is what Benton was trying to show. Having the sharecropper plowing up the field while it is still growing things is symbolic. It is symbolizing the fact that they don’t receive anything from all the labor they do. The sharecropper is very thin and the hip bones of the mule are sticking up. This reinforces the symbolism that Benton is trying to portray. It also shows everyone the reality of being a farmer or sharecropper.
"Thomas Hart Benton." The Art Story Modern Art Insight. Theartstory.org, 2016. Web. 19 November 2016.
Ag Everywhere #2
Big Problems From a Little Bird
Agriculturalists are constantly facing problems and threats that could end their livelihood every year. One of the most recent threats that could have seriously affected not only agriculturalists, but also anyone who uses public lands is the issue over the sage grouse. The sage grouse population numbers have been decreasing since the 1950s. Now conservationists are considering enlisting the sage grouse to the endangered species list.
This would mean that farmers and ranchers who use public lands or are near areas where the bird is, would either be kicked off the public land or seriously restricted in what they could do. This would also affect the mining industry in areas like Nevada as well as the general public because they wouldn’t be able to use the public lands inhabited by the bird.
The Fish and Wildlife Service identified grazing as a secondary threat to the bird. They claim that these animals are destroying the habitat for the sage grouse; however, I don’t believe this is the case. In 1994, grazing was eliminated entirely on the Sheldon Antelope Refuge in northern Nevada. The intent was to increase wildlife populations, especially sage grouse. The grazing theory was spelled out in the 1980 “Sheldon National Refuge Management Plan” which said: “The underlying assumption on which the program is based is that improving vegetative condition and vigor will enhance wildlife habitat, which, in turn, will ultimately result in increased diversity and abundance of native plant and wildlife species.”
In 1864, there were hardly any sage grouse recorded on the Sheldon Refuge and there were zero AUM’s (animal unit month) allotted for the region. In the 1940’s, there was a sage grouse population of 4,950 with more than 30,000 AUM’s allotted. The population and AUM’s continue to increase to their peaks in the 1950’s with grouse numbering 10,150 and more than 34,300 AUM’s. After the 1950’s, the government began decreasing the AUM’s for the Sheldon Refuge in hopes of increasing the grouse population even more, but with fewer AUM’s, the grouse population also decreased. In the 1970’s, the grouse population decreased to 4,450 with an AUM reduction to 20,000. This trend continues to 2013 with the sage grouse population on the Refuge at just 750 grouse with no AUM’s for the range.
This research shows that that there is a correlation between sage grouse numbers and the number of animas out on the range grazing; therefore, there has to be another reason why sage grouse numbers are so low. I believe these low numbers can be contributed to high predator numbers.
Predator control of natural predators of the sage grouse could be a potential solution. Coyotes are a major threat to sage grouse, especially young sage grouse. Another major predator are crows and ravens. While these birds don’t usually kill mature sage grouse, they are very efficient in finding and eating the eggs laid by sage grouse. The combination of these two predators could dramatically reduce the population very rapidly.
So, while we need to preserve the sage grouse population, we can’t shut down public lands from their intended purpose. This is why I believe we need to be implementing predator control programs in order to save the sage grouse population. This is the effect one bird species could have on the agricultural industry.
Hansen, Ira. "THE SHELDON: A CASE STUDY IN GRAZING AND SAGE GROUSE." Sage Brush Eco. State of Nevada Assembly, 15 Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Nov. 2016.
Fig I: Sage Grouse Numbers on the Sheldon