OCR Text |
Show Grazing Fets iked By Federal Agencies A joint announcement late last week by theDeA : partments of Agricul-1 ture and Interior in- j formed ranchers that'ij they would be paying higher fees in 1973 for j grazing rights on pub- j lie lands. Government officials J " said the increases amount am-ount to 12 cents per "an- 1 imal unit month" on BLM : land and a hike of 11 cents for the Forest Service. Ser-vice. An animal unit month or AUM is equal to one cow or five sheep grazing for one month. C. W. McMillan, executive ex-ecutive vice president of the American National Cattlemen's Association said the administration showed total inconsist-ency inconsist-ency by putting the graz-ing graz-ing fee hikes into effect. '- He pointed out that for the 1972 season, the ad-ministrationallowed ad-ministrationallowed fee - increases of only two and three cents per AUM - on grounds that larger boosts would be inflationary. infla-tionary. The increases announced Friday were said to be the maximum permitted under the 10--year formula which was designed to bring grazing graz-ing fees to a fair market mar-ket value of the forage lnimals consume, j The cattle spokesman ilso said the decision Ks a second bl;v; to j'roducers, citing a fVhite House decision tarlier to leave open the Import door for more foreign meat next year. The increases mean iiat National Forest razing next year will ost ranchers an average aver-age of 91 cents per AUM, tompared with 80 cents n 1972 , and a BLM ate of 78 cents, com-ared com-ared with 66 cents this ear. About 25,000 ran-hers ran-hers now hold permits a graze animals on the ublic land, mostly lo-ated lo-ated in the western part f the U.S. ' Critics, including con-ervationists, con-ervationists, of the use if federal land for private pri-vate livestock grazing, jlaim the fees amount b less than half what' per stockmen must jay for commercial gra-jing gra-jing on privately owned 4nd. They claim only 6 tr cent of the nation's ittle and 29 per cent the sheep use public nd and their owners e actually subsidized the expense of other estock producers and i taxpayers. |