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Submitted to: Society for Range Management Oklahoma Section Newsletter
Publication Type: Trade Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 7/15/2003 Publication Date: 12/5/2003 Citation: Northup, B.K. 2003. Impressions of the 7th International Rangeland Congress and South Africa. Rangeland Wire 12(4):2-3. Interpretive Summary: This communication presents a report on activities at the Seventh International Rangeland Congress held in South Africa (July 26 through August 1), by a participating delegate, to the Oklahoma Section of the Society for Range Management. The report highlights the high level of diversity that existed in the different technical sessions of the congress. It also identifies an important unifying theme that developed across sessions: the potential social and economic impacts of new techniques on subsistence-based farming communities, who value livestock in a different way than commercial farmers. The report also noted the general impressions of delegates about the Kwazulu-Natal Province of South Africa. Most notable were the extremely dry conditions that existed (due to a two-year drought) and the effects of large-scale planned and unplanned fires on the environment. Also noted were similarities between the cattle industries in Oklahoma and the Kwazulu-Natal Province. Most notable were the impacts of poor, small farmers on the landscape (continual over-grazing of pasture) as they attempt to gain desired outcomes from a limited land resource. Also noted was a desire by larger commercial producers for year-round high quality forage for livestock production, to support cow-calf operations in Kwazulu-Natal and stocker calf operations in Oklahoma. Technical Abstract: Trade Journal no need for an abstract. |
