It takes 10,000 Days to Train a Rancher
Ranching is in crisis. Every study done by any university or private organizaton shows that most ranches do not break even. The average ownership rate for a ranch is seven years. Demographers tell us that counties dominated by ranching and with no nearby city are losing population and that the average age of rancher is now over 60. Neither the children of ranchers nor the bright, young entrepreneur are turning to ranching. Those who do buy ranches are mostly city slickers with limited operating knowledge of local ecology or livestock husbandry who lack the lifelong commitment to succeed – they are doomed to fail.
Imagine if instead of ranching we were discussing medicine. Imagine if I were to tell you that the average age of a phsycian was 65, that their numbers were in decline, that they could not break even, and basically no one wanted to be a doctor? What if I told you, who showed up with a liver ailment, that the specialty ( specialized local knowledge ) was no longer avialable? What would be the result in the human community? High infant mortality, decreasing lifespan, malnourisment, parasites – a human community ( ecosystem ) in collapse.
That is what we find across much of the Plains. Ecologically, the story is the same. Anyone with a basic knowledge of how healthy range looks who drives West from Fort Worth, Texas will become sickened by the mesquite choked landscape, or who drives North out of Oklahoma City, become angered by the Juniper thickets taking over the land. Visits to major Wildlife Refuges or Wildlife Management Areas in the region show that brush and trees and exotic invaders are choking out any remnants of native ecosystems. Processes that sustained grassland were in place up until recent time such as burning, herds of grazers, and communities based on harvesting grass are gone.
What has caused this? To answer this, consider Medicine again. To become a doctor, a person must succeeed academically and socially as a teenager, then get accepted into a good college. Good grades and demonstrated interest in the basics of science then allow them to proceed to medical school. A very tough courseload in theory weeds out the uncommitted and dimwitted. Later courses introduce the student to the practical side of medicine under the watchful eyes of seasoned operators. Upon graducation, interns must endure two to four years of hands on apprenticeship while operating under increasing, but still constrained independence. After they receive their MDs, the young Physicians then join an established practice or hospital and then they are still watched closely. Only after another ten years are they freely trusted. By this time they are often involved in the training of new doctors.
Lets compare ranching. The average rancher buys their ranch, some cattle, and they start ranching. There is no knowledge transfer of local conditions, no long apprenticeship under a proven operator, no testing of their commitment, no steady expansion of their skills, no testing of their skills, and no slow buildup of how things are done or the best way to do them. ( And it goes without saying that there is no testing of ideas or search for better procedures. ) Imagine if every doctor had to begin from scratch – discover and codify internal medicine, come up with and test treatments, etc. The trial and error discovery of what works is costly. Except the cost is borne in this case by the land as well as the bankrupt ranches.
The awful and painful truth of much of the landscape around us lies in the lack of knowledge of startup ranchers. I would put in this startup rancher group most of the wildlife and refuge management as well. Given that most ranches fail because they cannot get the knowledge and cannot become successful, means that the lanscape suffers.
The standard agricultural economist says that its SCALE that pays. It not scale that pays, but the knowledge of how to use the land. Most self-made ranchers these days will not even hire a “trained” agriculture graduate, preferring local cowboys or Mexican immigrants. Many graduates go into the Parks or into “agribusiness”. There are few if any granduates of modern A&M colleges that are worth hiring, with the exception of those raised on a ranch or those with a hunting background.
A lot of MBAs start up businesses or take over underperforming firms, yet how many ag grads go start up a ranch? In fact, the men and women starting up ranching successfully with an Ag Education background are professors with 30 or more years who have accumulated the knowledge and carefully picked their ground. 30 years is about 10,000 days.
Just about every successful rancher today will tell you that he or she had to rediscover the wheel while studying under the school of hard knocks. They had to LEARN. Learning means overcoming failure after failure, especially when there is no school, no mentor, no deep culture to back you up.
The German Army has a saying that it takes 10,000 dead to train a Major General. Ranching is the same way. All those silly ideas have to die and the one idea left standing after 10,000 days is the one that will work.
Imagine if instead of ranching we were discussing medicine. Imagine if I were to tell you that the average age of a phsycian was 65, that their numbers were in decline, that they could not break even, and basically no one wanted to be a doctor? What if I told you, who showed up with a liver ailment, that the specialty ( specialized local knowledge ) was no longer avialable? What would be the result in the human community? High infant mortality, decreasing lifespan, malnourisment, parasites – a human community ( ecosystem ) in collapse.
That is what we find across much of the Plains. Ecologically, the story is the same. Anyone with a basic knowledge of how healthy range looks who drives West from Fort Worth, Texas will become sickened by the mesquite choked landscape, or who drives North out of Oklahoma City, become angered by the Juniper thickets taking over the land. Visits to major Wildlife Refuges or Wildlife Management Areas in the region show that brush and trees and exotic invaders are choking out any remnants of native ecosystems. Processes that sustained grassland were in place up until recent time such as burning, herds of grazers, and communities based on harvesting grass are gone.
What has caused this? To answer this, consider Medicine again. To become a doctor, a person must succeeed academically and socially as a teenager, then get accepted into a good college. Good grades and demonstrated interest in the basics of science then allow them to proceed to medical school. A very tough courseload in theory weeds out the uncommitted and dimwitted. Later courses introduce the student to the practical side of medicine under the watchful eyes of seasoned operators. Upon graducation, interns must endure two to four years of hands on apprenticeship while operating under increasing, but still constrained independence. After they receive their MDs, the young Physicians then join an established practice or hospital and then they are still watched closely. Only after another ten years are they freely trusted. By this time they are often involved in the training of new doctors.
Lets compare ranching. The average rancher buys their ranch, some cattle, and they start ranching. There is no knowledge transfer of local conditions, no long apprenticeship under a proven operator, no testing of their commitment, no steady expansion of their skills, no testing of their skills, and no slow buildup of how things are done or the best way to do them. ( And it goes without saying that there is no testing of ideas or search for better procedures. ) Imagine if every doctor had to begin from scratch – discover and codify internal medicine, come up with and test treatments, etc. The trial and error discovery of what works is costly. Except the cost is borne in this case by the land as well as the bankrupt ranches.
The awful and painful truth of much of the landscape around us lies in the lack of knowledge of startup ranchers. I would put in this startup rancher group most of the wildlife and refuge management as well. Given that most ranches fail because they cannot get the knowledge and cannot become successful, means that the lanscape suffers.
The standard agricultural economist says that its SCALE that pays. It not scale that pays, but the knowledge of how to use the land. Most self-made ranchers these days will not even hire a “trained” agriculture graduate, preferring local cowboys or Mexican immigrants. Many graduates go into the Parks or into “agribusiness”. There are few if any granduates of modern A&M colleges that are worth hiring, with the exception of those raised on a ranch or those with a hunting background.
A lot of MBAs start up businesses or take over underperforming firms, yet how many ag grads go start up a ranch? In fact, the men and women starting up ranching successfully with an Ag Education background are professors with 30 or more years who have accumulated the knowledge and carefully picked their ground. 30 years is about 10,000 days.
Just about every successful rancher today will tell you that he or she had to rediscover the wheel while studying under the school of hard knocks. They had to LEARN. Learning means overcoming failure after failure, especially when there is no school, no mentor, no deep culture to back you up.
The German Army has a saying that it takes 10,000 dead to train a Major General. Ranching is the same way. All those silly ideas have to die and the one idea left standing after 10,000 days is the one that will work.
posted by Red River at 6:20 PM
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