Grazing fees to drop by 25 percent this year

Ranchers will see a significant drop in the federal grazing fee this year. The fee for 2018 will be $1.41 per animal unit month on public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. That’s nearly a 25 percent decrease from the 2017 public land grazing fee of $1.87. An AUM is the use of public lands by one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. The newly calculated grazing fee was determined by a congressional formula and takes effect March 1. The fee will apply to nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases administered by the BLM and nearly 6,500 permits administered by the Forest Service. The formula used for calculating the grazing fee was established by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act and has remained in use under a 1986 presidential Executive Order. Under that order, the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM/HM, and any increase or decrease cannot exceed 25 percent of the previous year’s level...more