To ranch or not to ranch: Home on the urban range?

Abstract

California ranchers in urban Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and in rural Tehama County, were surveyed to examine effects of increasing development, land use change, and attrition of the ranching community on their commitment to ranching, and to assess land conservation program acceptability. Questions were about practices, reasons for ranching, and what influences ranching's future. Ranchers share much in common. Most enjoy ranching, "feeling close to the earth," living in a "good place for family life," and the camaraderie in the ranching community. They regularly carry out range improvements. Most believe that society is becoming "hostile to ranching." A dislike for outsider intervention and land use control prevails. Urban ranchers cared significantly less about the fate of their ranch if sold, and feared local land use planning much more. Rural ranchers overwhelmingly wanted their ranch to remain a productive ranch even if sold. No new ranchers appeared in the urban sample for the last 10 years. As urbanization proceeds, we suggest that a point is reached where ranchers recognize the social, ecological, and economic landscape as urban and see it as no longer suitable for ranching. Expecting to sell for development, and/or expecting zoning to change to allow it, becomes the rational view. Land conservation efforts, including relatively acceptable though as yet not widespread conservation easement programs, should begin before that happens.

Classifying land-ownership motivations in central, Texas, USA: A first step in understanding drivers of large-scale land cover change

“…Unlike approaches based on studies focusing on demographic indicators (e.g., Coppock and Birkenfeld, 1999;Liffmann et al, 2000;Rowe et al, 2001;Smith and Martin, 1972), ours is not bound by the context in which it is measured. It can be applied in any socialeecological system in which the rural restructuring phenomena occurs, and at multiple scales, as a way to inventory and track basic psychological orientations of landowners toward their land.…”

Perceptions of Utah ranchers toward carbon sequestration: Policy implications for US rangelands

“…Specifically with regards to ranching, innovation adoption by ranchers has been shown to be positively associated with higher net incomes, more formal education, enhanced stewardship values, larger ranch sizes, stronger business orientations of ranches, and a sustained family commitment keeping a ranch active (Brunson and Huntsinger, 2008;Coppock and Birkenfeld, 1999;Didier and Brunson, 2004;Peterson and Coppock, 2001). Factors discouraging innovation adoption include advanced age and pending retirements of ranchers, inadequate time and resources to implement changes, perceived drawbacks of the innovation, perceived disapproval from fellow ranchers, and negative attitudes toward government (Brunson and Burritt, 2009;Brunson and Huntsinger, 2008;Coppock and Birkenfeld, 1999;Didier and Brunson, 2004;Liffmann et al, 2000;Peterson and Coppock, 2001;Rowan et al, 1994;Rowe et al, 2001;Shrestha and Alavalapati, 2004). It has also been assumed that increases in knowledge are associated with greater influence of attitudes on behavior (Fabrigar et al, 2006).…”

“…Profit is not always a primary motivation among ranchers, who strongly value the lifestyle and cultural heritage associated with their lands and operations (Coppock and Birkenfeld, 1999;Peterson and Coppock, 2001;Sayre, 2004). Ranchers commonly absorb significant opportunity costs and tolerate sub-optimal returns on investment because non-financial values are important to them (Bartlett et al, 1989;Biswas et al, 1984;Gentner and Tanaka, 2002;Huntsinger and Hopkinson, 1996;Liffmann et al, 2000;Rowe et al, 2001;Sayre, 2004;Young and Shumway, 1991). Ranchers may also harbor suspicions about government and government programs (Coppock and Birkenfeld, 1999), and such attitudes can be inculcated from rural conservatism and other value systems that underpin the "independent mentality" of ranching culture (Grigsby, 1980).…”

The politics of marginality in Wallowa County, Oregon: Contesting the production of landscapes of consumption

“…These include contradictions between the accumulation and consumption interests of various actors in rural space (Flynn and Lowe, 1994;Green et al, 1996;Walker and Fortmann, 2003), between the agency of local actors and extra-local political or economic forces (Feldman and Jonas, 2000), and even between the property ideologies and desired landscape outcomes of individual landowners . An example of the latter is the tension, common among agricultural producers, between fidelity to free market principles and strong normative beliefs that agricultural land should stay in production rather than being converted to residential real estate (Huntsinger and Hopkinson, 1996;Liffmann et al, 2000). A perhaps even more fundamental and commonly-encountered contradiction is that between the property rights ideals of landowners toward their own holdings and their evaluation of neighbors' property rights (Freyfogle, 2003).…”

“…At the same time, the freehold estate has long been plagued by tensions between land as a productive asset and land as a speculative commodity, as Thorstein Veblen observed nearly a century ago (Veblen, 1923). Consequently, restrictions on the freedom to subdivide and develop land are typically framed by farmers and other landowners as threats to the exchange value of landed property (Freyfogle, 2003;Liffmann et al, 2000).…”