Plains Power
In Frank Herbert's Dune , Duke Atreides unlocks the secret to controlling Dune by seeing that it had to come from Dune itself - it was Desert Power.
Desert Power in the Dune novels was nothing less than the power of place which is nothing more than the ages-old Comparative Advantage - that is a better set of practices and knowledge and motivation.
Sustainable ranching is often defined as the maximum sustainable yield of beef that the land will produce. There are obvious problems with this, but the problems are deeper. And the latest "settlers" are still stuck to their Greenhorn Ways.
In Grassland, Dick Manning talks about Desert Power. He shows us that everyone has a plan for the Great Plains, except for the people who live in the land itself. Everyone come from the outside with their dreams only to be confounded and defeated by the nature of the place itself.
But people are not defeated - its their ideas that are defeated - its their ideas, not the people, that are not sustainable.
Ted Turner has bought up vast ranches. So have many other environmentalists and eco-groups. But something is not right. On one level, I strongly admire ANYONE who will put their money where their mouth is. And I admire them for saying the truth - that we have screwed up things that we cannot replace in a long time.
But, and this is the big but, the New West is not sustainable. Its true that they are stocking lightly, that they are burning more, that they are focusing on more than just pounds of beef per acre.
But, are they making a true profit? Does the cash made from selling the values inherent in the land exceed the cash put into the operations?
The simplest way to see this is to look at the ratio of livestock versus the number of people in an operation. Turner has a real problem with 30,000 head and over 200 people. This is 150 head per person. Even if his net is $100 per head, that's only $15,000 per person. Not enough to pay salaries.
But some operations have no income at all coming from the land. Their situation is akin to the settler who came West and plowed up the land and lived off the stored nitrogen and whose lives crashed when low prices and drought destroyed their balance sheets. These operations depend on donations to survive.
How sustainable is this?
The fatal flaw of environmental operations is that they do not derive their power from the land, but from the cities' largesse. Its the same old story. And it will fail in time because it is a net loss of energy.
The land must sustain itself. This is the central truth. Just as Dune had its Desert Power, so must the Great Plains derive its power from itself.
This means beef and bison and sheep. It means men on horseback. It means owner-operators and VAST operations. It means knowledge accumulating in committed minds who not only can surmount obstacles of weather and prices and men, but who LOVE the place unconditionally to be able to face it on its own terms.
Desert Power in the Dune novels was nothing less than the power of place which is nothing more than the ages-old Comparative Advantage - that is a better set of practices and knowledge and motivation.
Sustainable ranching is often defined as the maximum sustainable yield of beef that the land will produce. There are obvious problems with this, but the problems are deeper. And the latest "settlers" are still stuck to their Greenhorn Ways.
In Grassland, Dick Manning talks about Desert Power. He shows us that everyone has a plan for the Great Plains, except for the people who live in the land itself. Everyone come from the outside with their dreams only to be confounded and defeated by the nature of the place itself.
But people are not defeated - its their ideas that are defeated - its their ideas, not the people, that are not sustainable.
Ted Turner has bought up vast ranches. So have many other environmentalists and eco-groups. But something is not right. On one level, I strongly admire ANYONE who will put their money where their mouth is. And I admire them for saying the truth - that we have screwed up things that we cannot replace in a long time.
But, and this is the big but, the New West is not sustainable. Its true that they are stocking lightly, that they are burning more, that they are focusing on more than just pounds of beef per acre.
But, are they making a true profit? Does the cash made from selling the values inherent in the land exceed the cash put into the operations?
The simplest way to see this is to look at the ratio of livestock versus the number of people in an operation. Turner has a real problem with 30,000 head and over 200 people. This is 150 head per person. Even if his net is $100 per head, that's only $15,000 per person. Not enough to pay salaries.
But some operations have no income at all coming from the land. Their situation is akin to the settler who came West and plowed up the land and lived off the stored nitrogen and whose lives crashed when low prices and drought destroyed their balance sheets. These operations depend on donations to survive.
How sustainable is this?
The fatal flaw of environmental operations is that they do not derive their power from the land, but from the cities' largesse. Its the same old story. And it will fail in time because it is a net loss of energy.
The land must sustain itself. This is the central truth. Just as Dune had its Desert Power, so must the Great Plains derive its power from itself.
This means beef and bison and sheep. It means men on horseback. It means owner-operators and VAST operations. It means knowledge accumulating in committed minds who not only can surmount obstacles of weather and prices and men, but who LOVE the place unconditionally to be able to face it on its own terms.
posted by Red River at 7:37 PM
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