Red Meat Production on U.S. Rangelands

172 doing so, he raises several interesting and thought-provoking points concerning two subjects those of us in range management hold with no little respect; i.e., improving rangelands and increasing range livestock production. In brief summary, the USDA report projects an estimated demand for range livestock from approximately 215 million AUM’s in 1970 to between 250 and 300 million AUM’s by the end of this century. It concludes that the range is fully capable of meeting the highest projected demand by the year 2000, and, moreover, even has a reasonable potential to produce up to 566 million AUM’s by that time-a 265% increase! The report at least implies that the principal source of this increase in beef production (the document assumes that little, if any, of the increased production will be provided by the sheep industry under all possible circumstances-a conclusion which I believe to be shortsighted) is expected to be derived from increased stocking rates. Finally, the report states that the expected gain will be achieved, “by applying intensive environmental and livestock management to each acre of the total available range area.” In other words, range improvements. French responds that it seems reasonable, however, to expect range improvements to come at the expense of increased stocking rates for the next quarter century, rather than as a means of increasing it. Consequently, he comes to a basic disagreement with