Ranch-Level Economics of Lesser Prairie Chicken Conservation Practice Implementation

Abstract

In 2022, the lesser prairie chicken's northern distinct population segment was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act and the southern distinct population segment was listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Approximately 95% of the land area of the species is in private land ownership. Conservation is thus focused on these lands with funding potentially supplied through Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) conservation programs, most notably through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Under EQIP, practice payments are made to landowners to implement planned conservation practices. Trees and uniform grazing are viewed as two of the main threats to the lesser prairie chicken over its range. We seek to estimate the economic impact of implementing lesser prairie chicken conservation practices on small and large representative ranches in 4 Major Land Resource Areas (MLRA). Models were developed in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) as recursive linear programs and run for 20 years using random cattle price sets and precipitation patterns for each MLRA. Baseline models were first developed to balance forage with the average herd size; conservation practice models that implemented practices on all or half the rangeland area, with the ranch paying 100, 25, or 0% of the conservation cost, were then compared to the baseline models. This modeling exercise shows that restoring lesser prairie chicken habitat on private ranches may or may not be profitable for the rancher or the ranch household. However, all of the scenarios show that with some level of financial assistance ranchers can implement LPC conservation practices without experiencing lasting negative impacts to their ranch or personal household incomes. The size of the ranch, how much area needs to be treated, the forage response to removing trees, cattle prices, and how much of the conservation practices need to be paid by the rancher all affect the profitability of restoration.