Drought: A Best Management Practice Adoption Deterrent or Promoter?.

Worldwide drought contributes to land degradation, which has affected 1.9 billion hectares of land annually, leading to overgrazing and soil erosion. A drought plagued the Southern Great Plains (Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma) from 2011 to 2014, when Kansas and Oklahoma were in the top five cattle producing states in the country. In 2014, drought conditions caused beef cow numbers to reach the lowest number since 1951; 2013 marked the eighth year of decreasing beef cow numbers. In the Southern Great Plains there was a loss of 1.6 million head. This drop was a result of both degraded pastures and high feed prices. The drought negatively affected the quality and quantity of forage available for cattle production. In 2015, 43 producers in Kansas and Oklahoma participated in qualitative interviews to understand their grazing practices and how they responded to drought. In this study, drought acted as a test for many operations. Drought forced producers to change their practices. In most instances within this study these changes were positive in terms of BMPs. This study found when producers faced the daunting occurrence of drought, they took pause and changed the way they managed, and began to centrally process information and think critically. Then, they adjusted their practices towards more responsible practices. This finding is contrary to the inferences by various Extension publications that state drought is a barrier to adopting BMPs. In this study, once a producer and his operation had survived a harsh drought, he was more likely to make responsible management decisions. In the frame of this study drought acted as a promoter of BMP adoption, which is contrary to previous research findings.