Evaluating changes in ranch management practices through extension education

Abstract

Since 1988, University of California Cooperative Extension short courses have been offered to 362 California ranchers and interested participants. The purpose was to assist private rangeland owners and managers in planning ranch goals, monitoring ranch operations, and establishing economically feasible and ecologically sustainable grazing management systems. In 1994, an evaluation study of the short courses was conducted to determine if the rancher participants had initiated successful improvements in their ranching and grazing management. A survey questionnaire mailed to all short course participants had a rancher response rate of 49%. Results of the survey indicate that over three-quarters of the ranchers had family operations, most of which were cow-calf operations. Almost 40% of the ranchers earned more than half of their income directly from their ranching operation. As a result of having taken the short courses, ranchers reported that they had improved or protected 14% of the rangeland which they owned or leased. Over half said that they had increased their ranching profits. A majority of respondents had implemented at least one ranching practice presented in the short course. These changes appear to be motivated from ranchers' needs to increase on-ranch profits through enterprise diversification, to cope with regulatory constraints, and to improve land management for future generations on a family ranch.