This Land is Your Land...This Land is My Land, and the Cows

            With the continual conflicts between many ranchers and the federal government over rangeland a new analysis by Bloomberg sheds new light on use of 1.9 billion acres in the lower 48 states.

            And the conclusion: Over one-third of all land in the country is pasture or grazing land, or 654 million acres, with 25% of that managed by the federal government which allocates grazing rights for a fee.

            Combine the grazing/pasture land with 127.4 million acres of cropland gowing animal feed and the total is 41% or 781.4 million acres..

            One animal is by far the largest beneficiary of the combined acreage – cows. Sheep and goats are a distant second followed by horses and “farmstead” animals.

            Perhaps most signficant in the Bloomberg analysis is the relationship of lower 48  land use and economic output. Although comprising only 3.6% of land used urban areas carry the weight of the country’s economy, 40% of the GDP (gross domestic product) from the 10 largest metro areas in 2016.

            Other breakdowns:

• Although agricultural land makes up about  20% of the country, or 391.5 acres  that used for food crops is much smaller, 77.3 million acres. A third of ag land is in ethanol production.
• The country enjoys an agricultural trade suplus but imports 15 percent of food and beverage products. Most fresh produce comes from Canada and Mexico, while land used for citrust fruits is larger than Rhode Island.
• Of 168.6 million acres categorized as special use areas for parks, wildlife, highways, railroads and military bases, 100 million acres is in parks and wilderness. A little more than one-fourth of the special use land is deserts, quarries & wetlands, 37 million is in the other uses
• Forestland, public and private, accounts for 538.6 mllion acres, or abourt 28%. With 12.4 million acres, or 2.3%, Weyerhauser Co. is the largest private timberland owner. Although the US Forest Service estimates 11 million acres are harvested each year with regrowth the inventory increases by about 1% annually.
• And, maybe of particular interest to Central Oregon, 3 million acres are laid out in golf courses.
• While urban land use is growing by an estimated 1 million acres annually, since 2008 ownership by the nation’s 100 largest owners has increased from 28 million to 40 million-the approximate size of Florida, as cited from The Land Report.

           

            The Bloomberg report relies on data from the US Department of Agriculture Economic Rsearch Service’s Major Uses of Land (MLS) statistics and estimates from the National Land Cover Database.
View the complete report: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/