TheVoiceOfJoyce Ranching in the Southwest is a way of life and the 1200 year drought has impacted ranchers negatively. If fires don’t destroy their land, the silt accumulation will. Their cattle can’t adapt to the new shrubbery, feed becomes expensive. Ranchers are permanently subsidized, yet we haven’t weaned ourselves off Fossil Fuels? Fossil Fuels are heavily subsidized, too? We’re at the point where we can’t have it all. Our life and livelihoods have changed. Whether we live in the cities or rural communities, Americans are daily facing life changing decisions. In the Southwest, there are decisions to be made. Yes, there may be good years for Ranchers, but the nature of Climate warming is to warm more. The facts and the science are indisputable, unless we start incorporating renewables into our electric grid, we’ll deplete all our water . What’s the point of subsidizing industries that are not sustainable? How many industries have become unsustainable?

Posted on by jaslvr

www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/02/ranchers-struggle-survive-megadrought-us-south-west

Many ranchers – some of whose families have been herding cattle in the south-west for more than a century – are asking whether their grandchildren will be able to continue the tradition.

About 25,000 cattle ranches are located in the American south-west. But as drought conditions worsen across the region, two-thirds of ranchers are reporting that they have had to sell off parts of their herds, according to a survey conducted by the American Farm Bureau Federation this summer. Average herd sizes are expected to have fallen 36% across the region in 2022, a figure that rises to 43% in New Mexico, and 50% in Texas.

Increasingly dry and hot conditions across the US are also killing animals. In June, extreme heat killed 2,000 cattle in Kansas.

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