OCR Text |
Show Grazing Fees to Increase Only Sliqhtly Under Phase II m v m The Department of Agriculture Agri-culture and the Department of the Interior announced Monday that charges for grazing livestock under permit per-mit on Federal lands administered admin-istered by the Forest Service .and the Bureau of Land Management Man-agement will be limited m 1972 to an increase of three per cent above levels existing exist-ing in 1971, according to word rceived by Robert D. Niel-son, Niel-son, BLM state director fo Utah. This rate applies only to 1972 grazing fees. The overall over-all objective of grazing fee adjustments to reach fair market value, instituted by the Departments in 1969,' remains re-mains unchanged. . Limiting the fee increase to three per cent will serve to hold the line on ranch operating op-erating costs in 1972 and will thereby support President Nixon's economic stabilization stabiliza-tion program. The three per cent increase in fees will result in an average av-erage increase of two cents per animal unit month. The average fee for grazing cattle cat-tle on western National Forests For-ests will increase from the 1971 level of 78 cents to 80 cents per AUM. The fee for grazing on federal lands administered ad-ministered by the Bureau of Land Management will increase in-crease from 64 cents to 66 cents per AUM. The fee increase applies to the National Forests in the 11 western states plus South Dakota and Nebraska,- and" national grasslands and land utilization projects, administered admini-stered by the Forest Service and to federal lands administered admini-stered by the Bureau of Land Management in the 11 western west-ern states. Limitations on the. fee increase do not apply where fees are established by competitive bid. Grazing permits involve permission to use designated public land areas for livestock live-stock grazing for a specified term. This use frequently involves in-volves other factors essential essen-tial to effective livestock and land management. About 25 thousand operators hold permits per-mits for grazing approximately approximat-ely 9 million head of cattle and sheep on the Federal land administered by the two agencies. Most of this grazing gra-zing is in the western public land states. Mr. Nielson said about 2,-225 2,-225 stockmen graze about 150,000 cattle and 850,000 sheep on BLM-administered lands in Utah. These fee changes will be published in the federal register. |