🌾 How Grazing Got Complicated

If you’ve ever driven through the high desert of Jordan Valley or Southwest Idaho, you’ve seen the same open landscapes that have fed generations of cattle — wide, windswept, and beautiful. But behind those quiet miles of sagebrush is a complicated story — one that shaped how ranchers like us graze cattle today.

🐄 The Early Days: Free Range & Fierce Independence

In the early 1900s, grazing was a free-for-all. Ranchers, homesteaders, and sheepmen all ran their livestock across open range, often crossing into one another’s territory. Without clear boundaries, disputes were inevitable — sometimes fierce. These “range wars” were part of the Old West’s growing pains, as settlers learned that the land could only handle so much grazing before it needed time to recover.

🏛️ The Birth of Oversight

By the 1930s, dust storms, drought, and overuse had pushed the land — and the people who depended on it — to the brink. That’s when the U.S. government stepped in, creating what’s now the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to oversee grazing rights. The goal was balance: protecting the land while still allowing families like ours to raise livestock.
For the first time, ranchers needed grazing permits. Those permits were tied to “base properties” — owned land that determined how much federal range a rancher could use.

🔒 The 1960s: Fences, Limits & Change

Then came the 1960s — and with them, big changes.
Federal agencies began requiring permanent fencing to control livestock movement, aiming to reduce overgrazing and restore vegetation. At the same time, grazing allotments — measured in Animal Unit Months (AUMs), or the amount of forage one cow and calf need per month — were drastically cut, in some cases by 30–50%.

Those reductions helped some areas recover, but they also created unintended consequences. With fewer cattle allowed to graze, grasses grew thick, dried out, and became tinder for wildfires. In regions like ours, where snow and rain can’t naturally crush down the old growth, fire became nature’s reset button — and a costly one for both ranchers and taxpayers.

🔥 When Too Little Grazing Creates Too Much Fuel

Today, the debate continues. Environmentalists and policymakers often call for less grazing, while ranchers like us see firsthand how well-managed herds actually prevent wildfires.
By grazing cattle thoughtfully — moving them seasonally, limiting how much they eat, and monitoring grass health — we can reduce fuel loads and improve soil fertility, all while keeping these ecosystems healthy and productive.

🌿 Working Toward Balance

At Cunningham Pastured Meats, we’re part of a 10-year study with Oregon State University that explores this very idea: proving that responsible grazing can restore balance to overgrown lands. The goal is simple — to show that livestock, when managed correctly, are not the enemy of conservation, but a vital part of it.

For us, this isn’t just about cattle — it’s about stewardship. It’s about ensuring that the same land that fed our great-grandparents will still be thriving for the next generation.

👨‍👩‍👧 Counting on our Customers 

Added to rancher responsibilities, a revision of current laws and regulations is the important aspect of customers choosing to support local ranching operations like ours by purchasing locally grown products raised on regenerative ranches that adhere to best practice and raise cattle and animals the way that nature intended! Without a loyal customer base who understands the issues and supports ranchers who care about the issues we are destined to the limitations of heavy government oversite and a dying breed of ranching that has span the test of time.