Civilization took a big leap forward when we moved from hunting to gardening. So can economic development.
Consider Littleton, Colorado. In 1987, rocket maker Martin Marietta left town, laying off 7,800 workers.
“As good a citizen as Martin Marietta was, they were headquartered out east,” says Chris Gibbons, Littleton’s business director at the time. “Our future was being determined by people far, far away. They didn’t have to see the people in the grocery store on Saturday that they laid off” [Liz Farmer, "Economic Gardening Is Growing, But What Is It?" Governing, 2014.06.27].
Instead of going hunting for another big corporate employer, Littleton chose to focus on developing local businesses, specifically "Stage 2" businesses—10 to 100 employees, doing at least $1 million in business a year.
Gibbons called it economic gardening and began trying it out in Littleton in the late 1980s by identifying local Stage 2 companies and offering them more resources to help expand their business. Over the next 25 years, Littleton’s population increased by one-quarter but the number of jobs tripled and the city’s sales tax revenue went from $6 million to $21 million. “When Martin Marietta was there, we were a rocket town,” says Gibbons. “Now that economy is so diverse, there is no one industry that could fail and bring down Littleton like it could 25 years ago” [Farmer, 2014.06.27].
Tripling jobs and sales tax revenue, diversifying the economy, and increasing the number of locally invested entrepreneurs—can you beat that?
Oh yeah, and it costs less. Maryland is doing a similar economic gardening program. The state spends about $5,000 per business. The going rate in South Dakota is more like $4 million ($4.3M for Northern Beef Packers, $4.5M for French Bel Brands...).
Andrew Ratner, public relations manager for the Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development, says the idea is appealing in part because it takes the focus away from competing with other states. “That’s economic hunting -- everybody’s trying to land that enormous auto plant to move halfway across the country,” Ratner says. “And the amount of incentives that often have to be given to lure those kind of things, there’s often a lot of debate if that’s even worth it” [Farmer, 2014.06.27].
Not to overload you with metaphors, but how long have I been saying this about the Toyota lottery?
Governor Daugaard has seen the hunting fail and inkled that he might pursue an economic gardening policy. The evidence from Littleton and Maryland show that moving from hunting to gardening makes sense.
Here is one on the Rosebud, a long way from every place, but a small business that fits the community. We need more of these throughout South Dakota. http://www.trib-news.com/news/401-sewing-business-coming-to-parmelee-care-of-incredible-circumstances
Was listening to this fascinating NET Nebraska story yesterday while warping through Kansas on the road to Yankton: it's about carbon ranching.
http://www.netnebraska.org/article/news/923159/exploring-potential-carbon-storage-soil
I like the looks of cell grazing as well Larry. What you have sent is kind of like that in a way, mob grazing. But you do not have to destroy the range land with leaving your cattle to just graze it down completely. If you move them into paddocks, you can seriously make the most of your ground with the least amount of damage to it. Thanks for the information.
When people settled in specific areas and farmed they became territorial. Then they had to defend their territory. This led to conflict and as populations increased due greater food supplies armies had to be organized. These conflicts grew larger with time leading to wars over resources. It continues to this day. Hunter-gather societies were more sustainable. Not saying we could or would want to go back to that.
Rotational grazing has its place but it is only a small part to the equation. They dont talk about the importance of water in the article.
If you only have one or two sources of water in a pasture, the cattle will only utilize the grass close to that water. In that case the forced movement of the cattle to minimize grazing damage is necessary.
If on the other hand, you have a creek that runs the length of the pasture, the cattle will naturally move around enough to graze at a rate that is bennifisal to both the grass and the cattle. You can only get natural cattle movement like that if you have a consistent water supply throughout the entire pasture.
We never had to worry about our cows staying in one place, over grazing, because they always were within a couple hundred yards of running water.
It wasn't until this last drought that a lot of ranchers started putting in thousands of miles of underground pipe that some of these ranchs finally got full use of their ground. In some cases land that never had cattle graze for generations of people suddenly became an asset to the ranches.
If anyone wants to find out more about rotational grazing Robert Dennis up in Meade County has been doing it on his ranch in a modified way.
The secret is hard, not soft grasses, and water. If you have both of those things the cattle will move themselves. I suspect that a lot of the cell grazing has taken place on soft grass, somthing that wont take to much punishment and still grow.
The Blindman
Thanks for the information. I have been looking into this for the past several years as a point of interest. I spend a lot of time on the road checking out the horizons. I see many locations of overgrazing to the point that it looks like a prairie dog town with no sign of the little varmints. I thought that there might be a better way of doing grazing practices to get more out of the land with less harm to it. I found the Leopold awards http://sandcounty.net/permans-named-2014-south-dakota-leopold-conservation-award-recipient/
and started to follow it and how it worked. I do read the Dennis Ranch blog. I did see a video of the Guptill Ranch, last years winner, on moving water around to the different paddocks, very good ideas. Anyway, it is good to see that you and your ranching enterprise do what you do for the animals and for the ground we all depend on.
Interesting note on sustainability, Darrell, but your own statement that we wouldn't want to go back supports the idea that moving from hunting to gardening was a step forward for civilization. When you're hunting, you're always counting on another herd to wander your direction and on neighboring bands to not come over the ridge and shoot all the critters first. Could we argue that gardening is more sustainable because it gives us more control over our resources?
Hope Industries in Parmelee appears to be up and running, addressing unemployment in an area where folks have trouble getting jobs not because they don't want to work, but because they can't afford a car to get to work in any nearby town.
Jerry, I spent many hrs water skiing with Pat Guptill. At that time he lived about 15 miles west of me. Now hw lives on the south side of Peno Basin to the north and west of Phillip, and about straight north of Quinn.
I know all of those people from Parmalee, thats my old stomping ground.
The Blindman
Good deal Blindman, here is the video of them and that water carrier that I thought was a brilliant idea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGsjUdScWZM
I personally always thought that South Dakota producers could get more for their grass fed beef if they would advertise it as such, with video's like this, and stay away from the feed yards to get the job done in a more small business kind of way. There are restaurants in South Dakota that sell local beef on their menu and some of them are pretty busy places.
With shipping being what it is now, you can ship from South Dakota to almost anywhere with flash frozen products. You certainly do not need corrupt EB-5 beef processing plants to get the job done either. In sports, you always keep the small ball ideas into play to win the big game. Small enterprise is a great idea and a practical one that could fit this state very well.