Following negotiations of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, American settlers began migrating westward. The acquisition from France, which President Jefferson would later say “stretched the Constitution until it cracked,” incorporated some 828,000 square miles of new territory, which boasted auspicious potential for those willing to brave the unknown.

Over the subsequent century, pioneers began pushing west in earnest, encouraged by reports from early expeditioners, who described vast and fertile lands beyond the Mississippi River. Many early settlers were met by impressive free-roaming herds of cattle and bison, particularly throughout Texas and Oklahoma, that had been domesticated, to varying degrees, by Native Americans and Mexican vaqueros.

The cattle, settlers soon realized, proved an unexpectedly lucrative business specimen. Texas cowboys – as they would come to be called when ranchers began large cattle drives that often spanned hundreds of miles – started rounding up herds, breeding them and flooding East Coast markets with a steady supply of beef. The burgeoning trade created a stable industry in a frontier rife with booms and busts.

Ranches in those early days were loosely defined. Built around affordable homestead plots issued by the government, pastures were often shared and cattle herds comingled to maximize the productivity of the land. That communality put a high importance on brands—and brand inspectors, range lawmen of sorts that enforced ownership and sought to stop rustlers. Regularly, cattlemen grazed stock on public lands, a practice that continues today, albeit under more formal federal and state regulation.

With only rudimentary cultivation practices and virtually no modern technologies, early cattle ranching generally required sizeable tracts of land to support even a modest herd. In the Rocky Mountain West, long winters required ranchers to manage both summer pastures and fields for raising hay to feed during the long winters. Many operations employed ranch hands, or “cow pokes,” responsible for moving cattle throughout the year, which involved the unenviable task of warding off predators.

Unwittingly, that style of ranching created a sustainability model that experts today herald as a solution to greenhouse emissions. By frequently moving herds, only briefly feeding on each spot, the cattle would not overrun the land. At the same time, their movement turned up the soil, allowing it to absorb more rain and minerals, and their manure naturally fertilized the ground.

The Development of Agribusiness

Through the early and mid-20^th Century, as commercial and residential development restricted the land available to run cattle, and as conglomeration began to concentrate operations, a new model of ranching emerged: “macro-ag.” As imports and competition brought down beef prices, business-savvy ranchers soon realized the cattle business was a numbers game—larger, easily managed herds equated to greater profitability.

Rather than feeding an exclusive grass diet, which necessitated large amounts of land to support even a modest-sized herd, many ranchers switched to a combination of grain and high-protein hays like alfalfa. Unlike grass alone, those feeds put on weight and “finished,” or fattened, cattle for market in as little as nine months, compared to a year-and-a-half or more by free-range grazing. Grain diets, which developed markets for crop growers, could also be fed in concentrated feedlots, which needed much less space.

For decades the feedlot model dominated the beef industry, and smaller traditional ranchers were often forced out of the market by economies of scale and low prices, particularly in down years. The decline in competition created a snowball effect, producing fewer and larger mass-agriculture operations.

In tandem, awareness of greenhouse emissions began to gain greater public attention, which put the beef industry under intense scrutiny, which continues today. Cattle, by nature, emit a lot of carbon dioxide and methane—the latter of which has a significantly higher greenhouse effect than CO². Experts estimate that cattle produce as much as 26 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions. Others put the figure around 14 percent.

The beef industry’s “carbon hoofprint” compelled many environmental activists to call on Americans to consume less red meat. And ranchers’ plight was not helped by popular conceptions of feedlots, which often invoked images of cattle packed into over-populated concrete corrals. As recently as 2018, studies have argued consumers should eat 90 percent less beef and 60 percent less milk to stave off effects of climate change.

But what’s old is new, and more recently – within the last quarter century – a new generation of ranchers is embracing old techniques to not only mitigate livestock’s greenhouse impacts, but potentially reverse climate trends. Regenerative ranching, evidence shows, helps capture carbon into the soil, offsetting emissions from cattle and actually producing a net-negative carbon output.

A Return to Tradition

Like early forms of ranching, regenerative agriculture relies on rotational, or “holistic planned” grazing, which involves shuffling herds from one plot of land to the next. More deliberate than those early days, cattle are kept on purposefully small tracts for short periods. That allows them to eat down the grass, but not overwhelm it, while simultaneously aerating and fertilizing the dirt, which stimulates growth once the herd is moved on.

“Altering cattle grazing patterns and herd clustering to emulate those of their buffalo predecessors has a significant positive impact on the environment, including the health and diversity of the native grasses,” the Organic Consumers Association reported recently.

Many ranchers have discovered, too, the benefit of regularly replacing topsoil, or “range composting,” which, in addition to sequestering methane, helps maintain nutrient levels and foster growth. Healthy foliage, in turn, captures more carbon from the atmosphere, pulling gases out of the air. It also prevents erosion and runoff and better retains water, helping prevent against drought.

This process of regenerative ranching – which is hardly as economical as mass feedlots – has been buoyed by the modern food movement, which has put a heightened value on health, social and environmental accountability. In tandem with ranchers’ focus on ecological stewardship, a new generation of consumers has put a premium on knowing where and how their food was raised. And, increasingly, the public has gravitated towards grass-fed beef, which providers a healthier option to fattier grain-fed beef.

This combination of consumer and producer behaviors has begun to reshape and replace the former macro-ag model. Grass-fed beef commands only about a four percent market share of U.S. beef sales, according to a 2018 study by the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, but retail sales doubled year-over-year between 2012 and 2016, from $17 million to $272 million.

That’s given rise to smaller ranches, which for decades struggled to compete against corporate giants. It has even attracted unlikely allies, like presidential candidate and environmental activist Tom Steyer, who, with his wife Kat Taylor, founded the 1,800-acre TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, California.

“Think of the ranch as a huge science experiment,” Mr. Steyer told the New York Times in 2013. “Can you raise animals sustainably? Can the land become the carbon sink that it once was? Can you demonstrate a way of doing agriculture, raising food, that doesn’t damage the environment?”

“We would continue raising cattle even if no one ever ate another steak,” Taylor told the Los Angeles Times. She explains that the ranch’s model, and its cattle, could help reverse ecological changes that have contributed to climate change—and could upend agribusiness in the process.

The cattle industry’s embrace of regenerative practices is helping pull along other agriculture, as well. Leveraging natural synergies among bovine, chicken, fish and a whole host of other species, innovators have begun to harness symbioses. Inka Biospheric Systems, the New York Times reports, is developing a fish and vegetable business on the Steyer ranch using barley fodder from crops and black soldier flies and earthworms attracted by manure.

The vermicompost byproduct Inka produces, the article adds, is used to fertilize stressed locations on the ranch and made into compost teas that can be spread on orchards and on livestock as a natural pesticide.

“What we are slowly doing is taking on the waste streams the ranch creates and converting those into assets,” says Brian Whitney, former chief executive of Inka.

Ranchers have long considered themselves stewards of the land. Like no other business, they rely on the health and productivity of the dirt under their feet to survive. Now, on the shoulder of innovative new practices and technologies, cattle ranching is gradually transitioning from an object of blame to a serious solution to climate change.

To learn more about cattle ranching and this remarkable region, contact our dedicated team.

*Article courtesy of Western Ranches, the ranch division of Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates.

Take a drive around any given small town in rural American on any given summer night, and there is a good chance of finding a throng of trucks and trailers, cowboys and cowgirls, livestock and rough stock, parked around the metal fences of a dirt arena. At once gritty and pastoral, it’s a scene iconic to the American West—Rodeo. And from the proverbial one-horse town to the country’s biggest cities, its popularity is burgeoning.

 

In many ways, rodeo’s success itself bucks convention. As many remote communities – the kind of places where cell coverage is still spotty and population signs read like they are missing a digit – struggle against population declines and economic stagnation, the sport born from their traditions and fast-disappearing lifestyles is now riding high.

Nationwide, there are more than 600 rodeos sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). Countless more are operated independently. Bull riding, one of rodeo’s marquee competitions, is the fastest growing sport in the United States.

They say true cowboys are a dying breed, but not judging by their sport. From association memberships to airtime, most metrics point towards growth, especially at the professional level.

The rising number of competitors owes to a myriad of factors, like high school and even peewee rodeo programs that introduce the sport at a younger age and a stable economy (pro rodeo participation fell to near-record lows in 2009). But it’s also fed by the sport’s mounting celebrity. Rodeo has become a staple on many television networks, and audiences, in person and by broadcast, have steadily grown—as have the jackpots. Prize money hit an all-time high of more than $46 million in 2015.

There’s a strong case that rodeo’s entry into the mainstream is a result of the very suburbanization that has put mounting pressure on the communities typically associated with the sport. Over three-quarters of the U.S. population today lives in an urban location. In 2010, there were more than 41 metros areas with populations above 1 million people, up from 12 in 1950 and projected to grow to 53 by 2030. With limited access to ranching and agriculture, the spectacle of rodeo is even more pronounced within those demographics, which has helped to drive ratings.

But perhaps the more convincing case for rodeo’s sudden surge in popularity is less nuanced. The sport is a celebration of the heritage and lifestyles on which much of the country was built. Competitors and spectators stand and doff their hats for the National Anthem. They put a hand over their hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance. And they take a moment of silence for those who gave their life in service to our country.

And then there’s the sheer thrill of the sport. The teamwork between horse and rider for the timed events, the contest between animal and athlete for the judged events, and, of course, the unpredictability of the livestock throughout—there are few competitions that require such measures of athleticism and daring, and both in spades.

“People identify with what the cowboy represents,” Troy Ellerman, a former commissioner of the PRCA, said in a 2006 interview. “We are a slice of America that’s carved out an identity for itself and is becoming more and more popular. And a 2,500-pound animal against a 150-pound guy? It’s pretty good to watch.”

That’s proven prescient. Rodeo’s growing stature has created a booming industry. The Houston Rodeo, one of the largest in the country, generated some $391 in economic activity this year from ticket and on-site sales, lodging, food and auxiliary purchases. That spending created nearly 4,000 jobs in the area, according to research by Economics Analytics Consulting, LLC.

The National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, often called the Super Bowl of rodeo, generated $113 million in spending over 10 days last December, according to conservative estimates. Wyoming’s Cheyenne Frontier Days, “The Daddy of ‘Em All,” created over $27 million in economic activity last year, and the annual Reno Rodeo pulled nearly $60 million into the local economy. Such has become a reality of the industry. Big ticket events equate to big money.

 

For elite competitors, rodeo can be a lucrative living, too, although still modest compared to most major sports. The purse for the National Finals Rodeo this year will top $10 million, or about a $50,000 payout for event winners. PRCA champions generally earn between $200,000 to $500,000 per year, according to the organization’s data. Coupled with often large endorsement packages, top athletes’ earning potential is not insignificant.

In 2016, five-time World Title Champion bull rider Sage Kimzey became PRCA’s youngest millionaire, then only 22 years old. Even so, his combined career earnings of less than $2 million pale in comparison to the multi-million dollar deals regularly inked by professional athletes in better known fields.

Like most sports, it’s not easy to break into the upper echelons of rodeo. Nor is it often a glamorous life. An amateur competitor might collect $10,000 to $15,000 per year, the equivalent of a part time job, the Cowboy Lifestyle Network reported in 2017. But for most aspiring cowboys and cowgirls, there’s nothing part time about the gig.

Competitors travel frequently, often driving long distances from one event to the next. It’s not uncommon for athletes to participate in multiple rodeos in a single day, with no guarantee of a payout when the dust settles. It’s a grueling lifestyle, to be sure, and one that participants roundly agree is driven by a passion for the sport rather than monetary gain.

Even for mid-range competitors, a year’s winnings may not cover their costs of travel and caring for their animals. Health insurance, especially among bronc and bull riders, is generally unheard of; the premiums are simply unrealistic in this line of work. An injury or stroke of bad luck can quickly spell one’s undoing.

“Unless you are at the very top, you will not retire from it,” says Jimmy Crosby, a former bull rider.

In this multi-faceted sport, cowboys aren’t the only ones vying for potentially big winnings. So are the animals. A top-performing bull or bronc can earn significant prize money, and a market has emerged for breeders. Like riders, these animals compete for large purses, which can total over a million dollars for a season. In 2012, for example, Bushwhacker, then the top-ranked PBR bull, was valued at just under $1 million.

“Bull riding is a big business,” James Gorman reported in the New York Times earlier this year. “For the past 15 years or so, bucking bulls have been intensively bred like racehorses to make them harder to ride. Breeders use high-tech reproductive techniques and a detailed, computerized registry of 180,000 bulls and cows…For those who do buck, it’s a sweet life.”

The upshot is a sport that’s becoming increasingly challenging. As Gorman puts it, now all the bulls are hard. In 1995, 46 percent of bull riders completed their ride; today, only 26 percent do. Against such odds, it’s little wonder that rodeo has been called the “most dangerous sport.”

It defies logic, to some degree at least, that cowboys and cowgirls would gamble so much on such long-shot odds for what most likely will amount to a modest income and tough living. But an adrenaline high, the admiration of an anticipatory crowd, the struggle to hang on for eight seconds or set the perfect catch loop—those feelings often don’t conform to reason.

Perhaps that explains rodeo’s growing appeal. At its heart, it is a sport of grit and determination, good luck and strong spirits, fueled by the need to test one’s mettle under the lights of a grandstand and the cheers of a crowd.

In that sense, the sport is emblematic of the West itself: steely, resolute and independent—and yet still somehow dynamic and indomitable. Like the West, it is a thing of uncertainty, where the thrill and reward of the experience is worth the wager of it all.

“The tough part about roping for a living is that there are no guarantees,” says team roper Kendra Santos. “There is no paycheck in your mailbox every other Friday. You’re basically gambling on your skills and the luck of the draw.”

“Still, cowboys are true grit. They do not back down,” Santos adds. “This is something we love. It’s a dream. I know I’ve been doing this for 28 years, and I haven’t been able to shake it.”