BLM leases

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farmguy

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Joined
Mar 3, 2005
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Location
Minnesota
With this widespread drought how does it affect BLM leases? Are they ended for an indefinite period of time? What do you do when and if your lease is ended.? It was very dry in Minnesota last year and I and others sold many head,
 
BLM permits generally have forage utilization limits or stubble height requirements the permittee has to meet. Can usually turn out, but may not be able to graze very long and have to remove livestock and figure out what to do with them.
 
Every BLM district has a manager. There can be a significant difference from one district to another on how they handle things. Some will reduce numbers. Some will reduce the time allowed. Some will work with the ranchers and some are absolute jerks.
We had two field men from the BLM local office. One was pretty good. The other was a government employee..... The government employee transfered to somewhere else. The other guy has stage 4 stomach cancer. They brought in a young gal to take their place. She is over whelmed and doesn't have a clue. We will see how this works out. But this year here is a great grass year so she is having a great year in which to learn.
 
around here if you judge instead of them you can take non use or a reduction. they will do reductions if you don't first. blm around here is mostly year round desert type country. some riparian. most of the mountain/forest is Forest Service. in AZ there is a lot of State Trust land (best of the govt lease options). BLM also has recreationists and wild horses/burros in some areas in terms of headaches.
 
Government leases and permits are run by bureaucrats - some good with a pro grazing outlook and some bad that have an anti livestock agenda and some just doing a job. They run on 10-year plans and if the plans don't have any flexibility other than reducing use, then that is what you are stuck with. The key is to get a solid allotment management plan in place and build in flexibility on season of use, pasture rotations and timing, etc. One important thing is to have the forage utilization triggers be relevant to the range management goals, which should be based on ecological site inventories and progression to a realistic goal or maintaining a desired range condition. When a government range conservationist and the permittee can work together the system can work. When they don't it is usually really hard on the permittee and then there are the third parties, usually environmental groups, mucking around trying to break the system and get rid of livestock.
 

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