Branding cattle ranchers: A latent class analysis approach to characterizing patterns in rancher decision-making that alter rangeland ecosystems in California

Background/Question/Methods

A recent publication in rangeland ecology literature identify four rotational grazing strategies.  Each is purported to increase economic returns to ranchers while improving environmental quality compared to continuous grazing. However, there is little experimental evidence that rotation offers any added production value.  Despite the lack of evidence, many ranchers continue to apply for and receive funding related to practices and infrastructure that promotes rotating livestock among pastures.  Using data from surveys completed by 746 members of the California Cattlemen’s Association, our study tests grazing strategy selection response to social and environmental factors.  Factors include concern for ecosystem services other than forage and livestock production. We use latent class analysis to support a bottom-up approach to identifying the grazing system profiles of California ranchers and conditional inference regression trees to examine the potential influences drivingn the rpobability of class membership.

Results/Conclusions

We find evidence of two classes of continuous grazers and one class of rotational grazers exist in California.  Over 40% of all respondents are classified as rotational grazers.  Statistical models examine the probability of belonging to the rotational grazing class based on differences in attitudes, financial dependence on ranching, geography, concern for selected ecosystem services, and land ownership. Results indicate that ranchers who enjoy experimentation, rely on many information sources, and prioritize livestock production are most likely to adopt the California brand of rotation.   The main conclusions of this research are (a) ranchers are combining local knowledge with management recommendations to adapt rotation to local conditions and (b) the ranchers who have innovated the California brand of rotation see their strategy as beneficial to livestock production.  Results reinforce the observation in a recent synthetic review that the rotational strategies implemented in experimental ecological work may not be adequately capturing the economic value of rotation because they are too rigidly applied.  Our results inform participant selection in future adaptive range management studies on experimental rangelands.