Grazing on Public Lands Defended by Utah Farm Bureau

Statement from Utah Farm Bureau:
“In Utah, we have seen more than 70 percent of historic grazing AUMs cut or suspended through federal agency management actions. The establishment of a new national monument provides one more tool to the federal agencies to reduce livestock grazing. Let’s consider what the impact of displacing or terminating even a single average sized family cattle ranching operation would be:

Utah is a cow-calf cattle production state with cattle and calves contributing more than one-third of the state’s agricultural commodity sales. According to the Salina Livestock Auction, feeder cattle arriving from across Southern Utah for auction generally averaged between 450 - 550 pounds and were valued at about $1.75 per pound or $875 per head. An average cow-calf ranching operation with 500 mother cows and a 95-percent calf survival rate adds more than $415,000 in direct cattle sales to the local economy.

Based on a conservative economic multiplier effect, as feeder cattle sales dollars are spent in the local economy, that single family ranching business is the catalyst for more than $750,000 in rural Southeast Utah!

If you take a regional look at the number of mother cattle, in Southeast Utah’s San Juan (14,300), Garfield (17,700) and Kane (8,200) Counties, there were 40,200 mother cows that spent time grazing on federally managed lands in 2015. Those family cattle ranches generated more than $33 million in direct feeder cattle sales and contributed in excess of $50 million to the rural communities they support year ‘round. And this is a contribution that renews itself every year with the new calf crop.”