Factors affecting the adoption of patch-burn grazing in the southern Great Plains in the US

Patch-burn grazing, a combination of fire and grazing, has been identified as a novel approach to maintaining biodiversity in the Great Plains of the United States. Many ranchers, however, are not aware of the practice and very few of them had adopted it on their land. Utilizing the data obtained from a survey of landowners residing in the southern Great Plains of the United State conducted in 2021, we analyzed the factors affecting the awareness and adoption of patch-burn grazing. Since an adoption behavior study might suffer from selection bias if the level of awareness is not appropriately accounted for, we used a bivariate probit model for data analysis. The study results indicated that repeated wildfires, nature conservancy, and university/county extension positively affected the probability of patch-burn grazing awareness while the effect of age and livestock membership had a negative impact. The research further revealed that larger landholding size, management objectives to control blackberry, repeated wildfires, and university/county extension positively influenced the likelihood of patch-burn grazing adoption. In contrast, the management objective to control red cedar, along with respondent age, and higher-income negatively influenced the patch-burn grazing adoption. Since many landowners are not convinced to adopt patch-burn grazing, study results suggest further extension needs to educate traditional and non-traditional ranchers on the ecological and production benefits of patch-burn grazing.