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Producer Profile: Steep Learning Curve Pays
Off
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Nevada rancher Agee Smith
developed a diverse team to help manage his ranch’s fragile
resources. Improved management helped convince public land regulators
thatCottonwood Ranch could maintain its stocking densities.
– Photo by Mona Whalen |
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Fourth-generation Nevada rancher Agee Smith thought he knew the
35,000 acres that comprise his family’s ranch like the lines
on his palm – until he attended a Holistic Management (HM)TM
workshop in Elko.
“That was a changing point in my life,” says the co-owner
of Cottonwood Ranch.
Smith’s realization in 1995 became the foundation for his
management decisions ever since. It complicates decisions, making
range management “daunting, challenging and exciting,”
Smith says, because one decision will affect every aspect of the
family operation.
Smith and his wife, Vicki, attended the HM course after his father
went to one and then encouraged them to go. At the time, the Smiths
were battling with the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest
Service over mandatory cuts in their cattle grazing permits. Both
agencies supervise grazing permits for the ranch, and one permit
covers designated wilderness in the Jarbidge Mountains.
“They had cut our numbers to below 300 cows and this operation
was no longer viable,” Smith says. “I was tired of the
fight. Life is too short.”
As a part of his new management philosophy, Smith tried something
almost unheard of in the contentious environment of Nevada’s
public land management: He invited everyone who was interested in
the natural resources on the family ranch – environmental
groups, agency personnel, and university and extension people –
to create a collaborative management team.
“This is a decision-making body, not just an advisory team,”
Smith says of the people who direct major decisions on his 1,200
acres of private land as well as 34,000 acres of public land. “Now
we have problem-solving meetings, not barrier- type meetings. We
all at least respect one another and a lot of us are good friends.”
Smith counts this unusual team of managers as one of his biggest
successes. “A lot of people want to do this, but can’t
get it off the ground,” he says. “And sometimes an agency
will say it takes too much time. It does take time, but so do court
rooms.”
The group’s decisions have been right, at least some of the
time. The Smiths have tripled the number of cattle they run. Still,
net income was a problem. So, in 2000, the Smiths started a 100-horse
guest ranch. Agee’s sister, Kim, supervises the recreation
enterprise, which attracts mainly young people with children and
retirees. They also host business retreats and natural resource
workshops.
After the first six years of operation, the recreation enterprise
on the ranch provides about half of the income – and with
better marketing it could be significantly more, Smith says.
“There’s a lot of potential growth in the recreation
business,” he says from the ranch headquarters that sit 70
miles from the nearest post office and 30 miles from a paved road.
Kim and Agee would like to run more natural resource classes at
the ranch. Agee is especially proud of how the riparian areas have
improved on the miles of creeks that traverse the ranch –
although he is quick to point out that some spots still need work.
“As a kid, I remember the creeks with a lot of bare ground
and maybe one or two willows,” he says. “Now, the willows,
sedges and rushes are there along most of the creeks.”
The rehabilitation, he says, is all because of rest. Not total
rest, he adds, but at least not grazed continuously. “Always
have your riparians go to bed with hair on. In other words, leave
the stubble high enough to catch sediment in the spring.”
As the fourth generation on a five-generation ranch, Agee understands
the critical importance of intergenerational communication. His
parents, Horace and Irene, still participate in the ranch management,
and Agee hopes his two kids – who, with a niece, now tend
cattle and help with special events – will find a permanent
place at Cottonwood Ranch.
“When you criticize past range conditions, you have to be
sensitive to the generation who was in charge then,” he says.
“They were doing the best they could with the knowledge they
had. It’s easy for them to take your words as ‘you were
doing it wrong.’ That’s not it at all. Now we just have
so much more knowledge.”
“And someday we may be in the same boat,” says Vicki.
For more information about the Smith family’s Cottonwood
Ranch, visit www.cottonwoodguestranch.com/
or call the ranch headquarters at (775) 752-3135.
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Set
clear, succinct goals. Ask yourself: What do I want from
life in general and this operation specifically?