Many excellent comments made by Dr. Sayer and Dr. Huntsing on how roles of graizng and ranching have change over the deacades, especially in relation to conservaiton, climate, and wildfire.

Farmer and rancher mental health has been in the news the past few years, with farmer suicide rates alarmingly high. Farmers and ranchers are often seen as the embodiment of the American ideal -- the rugged individualist who is self-sufficient, doesn't need help, lives on the land, doesn't have problems . . . but the stresses of modern farming, especially financial stresses, leave many feeling hopeless and helpless. Don McMoran and Kristen Hinton-Vanvalkenburg discuss programs to help farmers and their families deal productively with the stressors and with mental health challenges unique to farming. 

There are several signs or symptoms to look for when stress has begun to take an effect on you or someone you know. If you see something, say something!
Thoughts of hurting oneself
Care of Livestock Declines
Increase in Agriculture-Related Accidents
Appearance of Farmstead Declines
Children Show Signs of Stress
Lack of energy/motivation to do usual tasks
Loss of interest in favorite activities
Alcohol and/or substance abuse/addiction
Withdrawal from others
Relational tension

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 
WSU Extension Suicide Prevention. https://extension.wsu.edu/skagit/suicide-prevention/. WSU and the Agricultural Suicide Prevention Program is not a crisis center. IF YOU ARE IN NEED OF IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE, reach out to the National Suicide Prevention line, 1(800) 273-TALK (8255).

Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Center. https://farmstress.us/

National AgrAbility Project. http://www.agrability.org/

Hanna Ranch, the movie: https://www.amdoc.org/watch/hanna-ranch/
and here: https://www.amazon.com/Hanna-Ranch-Mitch-Dickman/dp/B00KIGQLEK

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/3qTwZ9x

AoR 59: Don McMoran and Kristen Vanvalkenburg, Total Farmer Health

Americans often refer to electric fence as "New Zealand" fence, and many other grazing innovations seem to have origins in this relative small island in the southern hemisphere. Thomas Maxwell, a pasture scholar from Lincoln University in NZ, provides an overview of the history of indigenous land use, European settlement, and domesticated grazing animal use in New Zealand.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Recent article "Functional diversity vs monotony: The effect of a multi-forage diet as opposed to a single forage diet on animal intake, performance, welfare, and urinary nitrogen excretion". https://academic.oup.com/jas/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jas/skab058/6148868

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/30ZzjkM

AoR 58: Thomas Maxwell, New Zealand Grazing Geography in Brief

"Big ranches mean big risks", says Chase Hibbard. Large lands and lots of cattle doesn't equal guaranteed success in the economically unforgiving world of family ranching. The Sieben Live Stock Company has been around for 6 generations and has both awards and scars to show for their perseverance. All good stories have tension and dark threads in the weaving. Join Tip in a conversation with Chase and Cooper Hibbard about navigating the ups and downs of keeping a big ranch together. They discuss the fascinating history of this iconic Montana ranch, hard succession planning decisions, and how management is sustained today.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Sieben Live Stock Company website: https://www.siebenlivestock.com/

Charlie Russell painting, "Waiting for a Chinook", aka "Last of the 5,000": https://www.charlesmarionrussell.org/Waiting-For-A-Chinook.html

Montana Land Reliance: https://mtlandreliance.org/

Land Trust Alliance: https://www.landtrustalliance.org/. The Land Trust Alliance is a national land conservation organization that represents more than 1,000 member land trusts and is a good source for more information about land trusts and conservation easements. https://www.landtrustalliance.org/ 

Ties to the Land succession planning: http://tiestotheland.org/

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/3hYvA0W

AoR 60: Ranch Succession and True Grit at Sieben Live Stock Co. with Cooper & Chase Hibbard

Gus Hormay worked with the Sieben Live Stock Company in the 1970s and 80s to help him understand rotation grazing principles. Chase and Cooper have adapted these ideas, centered on extended rest, to their context and needs. This approach has worked especially well on public lands managed for elk habitat. They received the National Cattlemen's Beef Association's Stewardship Award in 2003 in recognition of these efforts and results. In this second half of the interview, Cooper and Chase describe their blend of rest-rotation and short-duration, high intensity grazing, methods for winter grazing, and putting this all together in some mixed-ownership landscape grazing projects.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Working Cows podcast interview with Cooper: https://workingcows.net/?s=hibbard 

Kiss the Ground, documentary on regenerative agriculture: https://kisstheground.com/  

Scott Chase's (Cooper's dad) new book, Beyond the Rio Gila: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Rio-Gila-Scott-Hibbard/dp/1432866133/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20PWDKDLFEKN6&dchild=1&keywords=beyond+the+rio+gila+scott+hibbard&qid=1620216618&sprefix=beyond+the+rio+%2Caps%2C300&sr=8-1

Angus Beef Bulletin article: http://www.angusbeefbulletin.com/ArticlePDF/0303abb_Sieben.pdf

2021 Rangelands journal article "Potential to improve winter grazing pastures: Sieben Land and Livestock study": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019005282100002X. Authors estimate that It is estimated that grazing instead of feeding cattle during the winter can save 42% to 70% of the yearly input costs in the western United States and Saskatchewan, Canada.

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/3wDtyat

AoR 61: Cooper & Chase Hibbard, Part 2 -- Grazing Principles

Ashley Hibbard may seem an unlikely rancher, but she may do more to change minds about ranching than most who seem more likely advocates. Ashley, whom astute listeners will remember from the Women in Ranching Forum from SRM's 2020 annual meeting, runs an artist-in-residency program on the Sieben Live Stock Company home place in central Montana. Good art can bypass bad logic, and the beauty of ranching done well affects even those who think ranching is detrimental to both humans and the planet. Listen to Ashley tell her story in this interview. 

SHOW NOTES
Ashley and Cooper are featured in a Montana Land Reliance video series, "Stewardship with Vision." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=179SsWS2RJo

Women in Ranching recording: https://soundcloud.com/art-of-range/aor-036-srm-09-womeninranching

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/3fo0sWS

AoR 62: Ashley Hibbard, Artistry on the Range

Ted Turner started buying ranch land in the early 1990s as both an investment and to conserve habitat for imperiled species at a spatial scale that would be meaningful. Today, Turner Enterprises owns nearly 2 million acres of land across the Western United States. Mark Kossler manages the ranching operations on these 15 properties, all of which include bison. Carter Kruse is the lead scientist for the management efforts behind numerous species conservation efforts on Turner's holdings. 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
https://tedturnerreserves.com/our-mission/

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/3vua1cb

AoR 64: Mark Kossler & Carter Kruse, Conservation Ranching at Landscape Scales

Spring 2021 arrived with a large percentage of the Western U.S. exhibiting below-average precipitation, in some places a lot below the 15-year mean. Matt Reeves discusses current conditions and potential ecological responses, and Shannon Neibergs analyzes livestock management options, including current cattle markets, hay supply, and herd management scenarios.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Matt has a periodic spring/summer webinar called Reading the Tea Leaves: https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/events/tealeaves

The Fuelcast website is https://www.fuelcast.net/

Livestock Forage Program: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/FactSheets/livestock_forage_program_lfp-fact_sheet.pdf
 
IRS tax management, weather-related(drought) sales of livestock: https://ruraltax.org/files-ou/RTEWeatherRelatedSalesofLivestock.pdf

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/2SzCTkZ

AoR 63: Early Drought Response 2021 with Matt Reeves & Shannon Neibergs

Some people are called to work at the intersection of theory and practice and to challenge unchallenged ideas about what we do and why we do what we do. Clay Conry is one of those people. His Working Cows podcast is occupying a niche in livestock agriculture. As both a practicing rancher and a thinker, Clay is influencing sustainable agriculture for the good, for healthy land and animals as well as human flourishing. Join Clay and Tip for a discussion about what Clay has learned through three years of recording a weekly podcast on cows. 

Subscribe today to the Working Cows podcast. Go to https://workingcows.net/podcasts/ and click on your favorite podcasting app. 

TRANSCRIPT:  https://bit.ly/2M74aYT

AoR 55: Clay Conry, Regenerative Agriculture and the Working Cows podcast

The Society for Range Management's annual meeting will be held virtually Feb 15-18, and the keynote speakers for the plenary sessions will address three 'wicked problems' in range. Drs. Lynn Huntsinger and Nathan Sayre, who are moderating two of the plenary sessions, discuss the outline of these wicked problems to introduce the important subject matter for this year's conference. 

SHOW NOTES
Register for the conference at http://annualmeeting2021.rangelands.org/. 
Establish a membership for reduced registration at https://rangelands.org/. 

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/2Y0Mcd5

AoR 54: Conservation Ranching, Wildland Fire, & Climate Change--The Wicked Problem SRM Plenaries

Maurice and Beth are a father-daughter team who raise and sell farm-finished beef in Eastern Washington and are perhaps the first two-generation pair trained in holistic management. They have experienced the highs and lows of making a family ranch run well: for people, for land, for animals, for consumers. They reflect in this interview on decades of practice and adaptive learning and offer entrepreneurial lessons for others interested in doing direct meat sales and identifying other profit centers connected to a truly sustainable ranching operation.
Beth operates a Cowgirl Camp (http://pnchm.org/educational-opportunities/new-cowgirl-camp/) for women in ranching, and the ranch website offers a good example for others working to promote their meat sales: https://www.lazyrbeef.com/. 

WEBSITES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
https://www.lazyrbeef.com/
http://pnchm.org/educational-opportunities/new-cowgirl-camp/
https://csanr.wsu.edu/case-studies/

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/2OTpYbI

AoR 56: Beth & Maurice Robinette, Practicing and Promoting Holistic Management

Americans are vaguely aware of pastoralism as a term connoting a lifestyle that revolves around animal raising, but most of us don't have much more understanding than a loose attempt at a definition. Fiona Flintan has spent much of her career with the International Livestock Research Institute working with pastoralist cultures in Africa, helping secure rights to land and address conflicts, and communicating this way of life to the outside world. Listen in on her conversation with Tip about livestock as a way of life rather than a means of obtaining money, about unique features of pastoralist peoples, of the nature of conflicts over abundance rather than shortage.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:
https://www.ilri.org/
Guidelines for participatory rangeland management: https://www.ilri.org/publications/mapping-guidelines-participatory-rangeland-management-pastoral-and-agro-pastoral-0

TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/37BWYvB

AoR 57: Fiona Flintan, Pastoralism and People of African Rangelands

The Art of Range is a podcast about rangelands for people who manage rangelands.  Our goal is education and conservation through conversation.  Find us online at www.artofrange.com.

AoR 54: Conservation Ranching, Wildland Fire, & Climate Change--The Wicked Problem SRM Plenaries

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