Floating an idea, don't kill the messenger

[Gellar]

Multiple reasons. Conversion to crop land is high. A landowner is going to charge a rental rate that competes with the alternative of just converting the grass to crop or some other development. A lot of the guys with cows are land-poor locally. Land is expensive, and they can’t afford to buy enough land of their own to run enough cows to make a living.

My rental rate is tied to the average private rental rate in the state, so it’s right in line with what they’re paying to graze private. Though we give them deductions for maintenance work, grazing improvements, spraying weeds, etc- things we would normally need to do but can’t get done due to lack of staff.

In this part of Iowa we dont see the conversion of pasture to crop land as much. Most tillable ground is already tillable and most pasture is so steep and rough its not possible to till. with 3.50 corn its not bad, but when we get to $7 corn some questionable ground becomes farmable and CRP is converted back to ag. In other parts of Iowa, they just dont pasture anymore, its all

 

[The_Jim]

Idk about farming, but I work with grazers daily, and I’m not bound by the Taylor Grazing Act. Private leases, and my rental rates, are 15-20 times the going rate on BLM. I’m charging $26.00/pair this year and none of my cooperators is batting an eye. $1.35 or whatever it is is criminal, and a fleecing of America. They have plenty of wiggle room in between those numbers.

I was going to bring this up. I'm curious about the profit margins on someone grazing their herd on BLM vs. a ranching family that owns & leases private land for their operations.

I have almost $4k into the whole beef I bought this year. (thats processed and packaged) I buy it from a family farm and I would rather see them be profitable and pay a little more for my beef than watch the big 4 packers make record profits with cheap beef.

 

[Hunting Wife]

In this part of Iowa we dont see the conversion of pasture to crop land as much. Most tillable ground is already tillable and most pasture is so steep and rough its not possible to till. with 3.50 corn its not bad, but when we get to $7 corn some questionable ground becomes farmable and CRP is converted back to ag. In other parts of Iowa, they just dont pasture anymore, its all

We still see a lot of conversion, and development- plenty of conversion to crop still (which I suspect is driven on this shitty ground due to reductions in CRP enrollment coupled with crop insurance), oil and gas frequently but increasingly these battery storage facilities, data centers, cloud computing facilities.

 

[OldManOnTheMountain]

Shoot him! Get that messenger guy!...

I understand the logic, but wonder if the interests of sportsmen receive more attention than they otherwise might simply because we are the ones greasing the wheels. The moment "non-consumptive" recreational users begin paying fees, our influence may be diminished.

And that brings up another point. I recognize that hunters and fishermen are labeled "consumptive" users, but that needs to change. The truth that we and others must understand is that sportsment take only the excess in fish and game populations that would perish with or without us. To call us "consumptive" only reinforces the impression that our activities somehow reduce the populations of the species we pursue. Only when non-hunters understand that it is impossible to stockpile wildlife beyond carrying capacity, and that the deer, turkey, etc we take would die otherwise, of other natural causes, will the well-intentioned among them permit us in good faith to engage our "sport" (which, again, is a horribly misleading term when used to describe hunting/fishing and must somehow be expunged from use).