By Brandi Buzzard on September 22, 2025
Sustainability in Ranching: Balancing Family, Community and Profitability in the Beef Industry
Cows, Community and Continuity
I have written at length about sustainability in the beef industry and how ranchers strive for environmental preservation, improvement and profitability. And while I can geek out about grass and grazing any day of the week and garner a wide-eyed “What’s wrong with her?!” look from the most avid of ranchers, that’s not what this post will discuss.
Traditionally, sustainability has three pillars: environmental, social and economic. The first is self-explanatory while the latter two deserve a deeper discussion.
SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Social sustainability addresses issues like gender equality, human rights, fair working conditions and positive community engagement. While it’s easy to imagine those in our society for a more urban-centered business, what might those tenets look like on a farm or ranch?
One way is providing the same opportunities for the daughters as is done for the sons. It’s not uncommon for the son(s) to have first priority or opportunity to return to the family operation while any daughters and their futures may be handled differently. Women represent nearly 40 percent of farmers and ranchers in this nation. What might that percentage be if more retiring generations made the same opportunities available for their daughters as they do their sons? Personally, on our ranch, my oldest daughter already knows if she wants to return to the ranch when she grows up, she can. And we will communicate that same message to our youngest, as well. No need for our girls to run off to Montana or Texas or Arizona or Virginia to ranch; come back to home sweet Kansas and do it here!
A point of clarification, before anyone’s hackles hit the ceiling, we will never force our daughters to return or guilt them with the idea of, “We need you to come home and run the ranch, or it will dissolve.” This is our dream; it doesn’t have to be theirs.
Along the same lines, fair working conditions and community engagement are so crucial in a business. The family is the community, and it’s my sincere belief the family is more important than the business. Unfortunately, too often, generational transfer breaks down because the “needs” of the farm — an inanimate object, soil essentially — are prioritized above the actual needs and well-being of the people on the farm or ranch. Far too often, a family is broken up because one or more parties’ feelings are trampled or ignored and bridges are burnt. Different generations have been raised with different backgrounds, economic eras, labor mindsets, etc. Work-life “balance” is much more mainstream and, rightfully so, accepted with millennials and later generations but that mindset doesn’t always align with current management’s ideas. I don’t say this to condemn one age group over another; it’s just a fact of life that people raised in different decades have different ideas about life.
ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
Similarly, an economic tenet of sustainability is investing in innovation and employee development. In the last 50 years, agriculture has taken innumerable advances due to technological innovation. Crop yields and meat production have increased while simultaneously finding ways to better steward the resources we manage. Agricultural science continues to find new ways to make processes easier and more successful for producers while also providing numerous benefits for customers.
Technology and innovation tie into employee development quite easily. Allowing other employees on the operation to research new products and take the lead on implementation provides them with management training. Additionally, making time and room for the next generation to attend farm and ranch conferences to learn about new technology and ideas — instead of consistently being tasked with staying home to feed the cows while Mom and Dad have a working vacation — can positively impact the learning curve as well as the family’s overall mental and emotional well-being. Perhaps each stakeholder attends a conference every other year? This way everyone can get in on the professional development fun.
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
I’d be remiss to write an entire article about beef industry sustainability and not mention animals or land. While it’s easy to point to the environmental benefits of responsibly caring for land, what about herd and business sustainability? In a recent beef industry-wide survey by Drovers, land availability was listed as a challenge for future growth. As land continues to be scooped up for development, beef producers must find new ways to produce the same amount of — or more — beef for a growing population. Land can only give so much, so naturally the animal must give more or better put, producers must learn how to coax more out of cows and their calves. One way is to utilize premium genetics proven to produce larger weaning weights for calves, higher-quality beef and increased fertility. This combination of characteristics can help producers raise more beef on smaller amounts of land and increase their profitability, which is a vital component of business sustainability.
Ranching is a business and like all businesses, there are strategies, nuances and challenges to consider when making management decisions. How we choose to navigate those determines how many generations will happily return to the ranch and proudly carry on the legacy.
My sincere hope — and something my husband and I have already discussed — is that if our children want to return to the ranch, we are able to transfer it safely and successfully and we all still desire to have Sunday supper together every week. Anything less is unacceptable to me, and that’s a hill I’ll die on.
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