Challenges and Opportunities for Extension in Drought Adaptation: A Case Study of Ranching in New Mexico

Maude Dinan aJornada Experimental Range, Las Cruces, New Mexico
bUSDA Southwest Climate Hub, Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Mark Brunson cUtah State University, Logan, Utah

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Emile Elias aJornada Experimental Range, Las Cruces, New Mexico
bUSDA Southwest Climate Hub, Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Joel Brown aJornada Experimental Range, Las Cruces, New Mexico
bUSDA Southwest Climate Hub, Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Abstract

Prolonged drought poses significant challenges for food and fiber production in the U.S. Southwest, where range livestock production has great economic and cultural significance. Sustaining rangeland agriculture in the region necessitates swift and nimble uptake of drought adaptations. While the Cooperative Extension Service serves as a promising resource to drought adaptation among ranchers, how Extension staff perceive their capacity to support ranching clientele in that endeavor is not well understood. We interviewed university Extension professionals across New Mexico to explore their perceptions of drought. We found that their perceived ability to aid in drought adaptation was dependent upon interpersonal, as well as structural, factors. These factors differed across ranching regions in New Mexico. This case study highlights the importance of Extension networks, opportunity for novel Extension training, and a need for heightened attention to structural barriers.

© 2024 American Meteorological Society. This published article is licensed under the terms of the default AMS reuse license. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses).

Corresponding author: Maude Dinan, mdinan@nmsu.edu

Abstract

Prolonged drought poses significant challenges for food and fiber production in the U.S. Southwest, where range livestock production has great economic and cultural significance. Sustaining rangeland agriculture in the region necessitates swift and nimble uptake of drought adaptations. While the Cooperative Extension Service serves as a promising resource to drought adaptation among ranchers, how Extension staff perceive their capacity to support ranching clientele in that endeavor is not well understood. We interviewed university Extension professionals across New Mexico to explore their perceptions of drought. We found that their perceived ability to aid in drought adaptation was dependent upon interpersonal, as well as structural, factors. These factors differed across ranching regions in New Mexico. This case study highlights the importance of Extension networks, opportunity for novel Extension training, and a need for heightened attention to structural barriers.

© 2024 American Meteorological Society. This published article is licensed under the terms of the default AMS reuse license. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses).

Corresponding author: Maude Dinan, mdinan@nmsu.edu

1. Introduction

Severe drought has been called “the greatest recurring natural disaster to strike North America” (Cook et al. 2007) as well as “a defining feature of the Intermountain West” (Coppock 2020). Climate simulations suggest that severe, multiyear postsettlement droughts in U.S. rangeland regions, while economically disastrous, were dwarfed in geographic extent and intensity by multidecade “megadroughts” that occurred 700–900 years ago (Herwijer et al. 2007). Climate researchers now believe southwestern North America has entered another megadrought (Szejner et al. 2020; Williams et al. 2020) with effects that will be exacerbated by a warming climate and climatic extremes.

Drought can have severe economic consequences for agriculturally based regions (Adams and Peck 2002), with attendant social and cultural impacts on individuals, households, and communities (White et al. 2023). Cattle ranching, in particular, maintains great economic (Havstad et al. 2018) and cultural (Raish and McSweeney 2001) significance in the Southwest region. Though the mitigation of anthropogenic causes of climate change requires extensive global and political action, ample opportunity exists to reduce its impacts to ecosystems, economies, and communities through shifts in, and adoption of, innovative, agricultural practices (Holechek et al. 2020; White et al. 2023). Examples of drought adaptations among ranchers include diversifying sources of forage, water, and income; adjusting herd genetics; and developing drought contingency plans (Brugger et al. 2018; Coppock 2020).

Studies of ranching innovations such as drought adaptations indicate that uptake of new practices is influenced by business orientation (Coppock 2020), trust in and access to information sources (Kennedy and Brunson 2008; Ghajar et al. 2019), rangeland fragmentation (Sayre et al. 2012), confidence in the future of the enterprise (Didier and Brunson 2004; Sayre et al. 2012), beliefs about drought risk (Coppock 2011; Wilmer et al. 2016), risk tolerance and perceived uncertainty (Wilmer and Fernández-Giménez 2015), and the complexity and feasibility of recommended adaptation methods (Coppock 2020; Greene et al. 2022). Efforts to increase the effective use by ranchers of drought adaptations should seek to boost adaptive capacity while taking these influences into account.

Boundary organizations serve to translate science and policy knowledges and leverage resources across societal stratas to increase capacity of actors on the ground (Goodrich et al. 2020). The Cooperative Extension Service in the United States (hereafter, Extension) serves as a promising boundary organization to help facilitate drought adaptation among ranchers by providing linkages to science, policy, funding, and social knowledge and support. Established by the Smith–Lever Act in 1914, Extension translates research and disseminates new or improved technologies across sectors and rural communities to support economic and social prosperity (Wojcik et al. 2014). After over a century, Extension remains a trustworthy source for agricultural producers (Prokopy et al. 2015; Chatrchyan et al. 2017). Further, compared to other trusted advisory sources, such as agricultural retailers, Extension is most likely to provide insight across a variety of risks and over long-term planning periods (e.g., beyond the growing season) (Church et al. 2018), allowing for more robust drought planning and adaptation.

Given climate change’s threat to agricultural enterprise and community well being, there is a strong expectation for Extension professionals to relay novel initiatives, practices, and technologies designed to increase agricultural producers’ ability to adapt to impacts (Antwi-Agyei and Stringer 2021; Olorunfemi et al. 2020). Previous studies suggest similar sentiment among Extension staff themselves (Prokopy et al. 2015; Church et al. 2018). However, while considerable research exists regarding ranchers’ capacity to adapt, little research explores Extension’s perception of the space they serve in relation to their capacity to relay advances to ranchers. This information can enhance the quality of Extension services as it can better identify the skills, training, and partnerships needed to perform them.

Because Extension can be a critical conduit of information of, and source for capacity building to, drought adaptation, we interviewed university Extension professionals across New Mexico to understand how they perceive drought adaptive capacity among distinct ranching regions of the state and where challenges might arise in their service provision. “Adaptive capacity” is the ability to respond to a hazard in ways that allow the enterprise, community, etc., to survive and thrive in spite of exposure to the hazard (Smit and Wandel 2006). One might think of adaptive capacity as a human system analog to ecosystem resilience. When its adaptive capacity is greater, the components of a human system (ranch, business, small town, county, etc.) are better able to absorb or resist the effects of the disturbance (e.g., a natural hazard such as drought or wildfire) and maintain critical social processes and functions (e.g., flows of income, local businesses, and schools) while avoiding undesirable states.

Understanding drought adaptive capacity requires broad consideration of the components of a social–ecological system (Brown et al. 2016; Fanok et al. 2021). We were interested not only in factors that Extension practitioners believe have influenced the uptake of adaptations, but how those factors might differ across a heterogeneous social–ecological landscape. New Mexico is an ideal location to explore this question because of its historic dependence on rangeland agriculture, a wide range of precipitation depending on longitude and elevation (Table 1), and a diverse settlement pattern defined by numerous Indigenous groups, descendants of Spanish land grants, and Anglo-owned farms and ranches. Previous studies that explore both drought adaptation (e.g., Coppock 2020; Wilmer et al. 2016) and Extension’s role within (e.g., Kamruzzaman et al. 2020; Prokopy et al. 2015) typically have focused on a specific state or region within a state (e.g., Coppock 2020; Didier and Brunson 2004; Kennedy and Brunson 2008) and have not explicitly examined how geographic variation might influence adaptation and service provision.

Table 1.

Agro-ecoregion characteristics. Data provided by Dreaming New Mexico (2021), U.S. Census Bureau (2021), and the Agricultural Census (NASS 2017). Population percentages only for selected demographic groups, so may not total 100%.

Table 1.

2. Methods

We conducted semistructured interviews in June–September 2020 as part of a larger, westwide project meant to understand the variability of climate change impact across rangelands of the western United States (Suding 2018). This larger project used statistical modeling and projections as well as qualitative interviews. We interviewed New Mexico State University (NMSU) Cooperative Extension Service (CES) agents (livestock, 4-H, Tribal) across the state to understand how they perceive their capacity to support ranching clientele in adapting to drought. Each of the 33 counties in New Mexico has its own NMSU CES office with staff that oversees agricultural needs within the county’s jurisdiction.

We prioritized counties where livestock production serves as a significant contributor to the local economy and culture. Suspecting that variation in drought adaptation among ranchers, and thus how Extension responds, would be partially attributed to differences in the biophysical environment, we structured our sample design to ensure that we spoke to at least two county agents from each agricultural ecological zone, or agro-ecoregion, of the state (Fig. 1). Agro-ecoregions are human-managed ecosystems, modified by tillage, irrigation, nutrient addition, livestock introduction, and other landscape changes to support food systems given the region’s environmental conditions (e.g., climate and soil moisture) (FAO 1996; Dreaming New Mexico 2021). They offer one general approach to understanding landscape histories, largely influenced by people’s response to their environment, which offer insight to how and why people might respond to drought and climate change. In New Mexico, agro-ecosystems include the Colorado Plateau, southern Rockies, transition mountains, central plains, High Plains, and arid lowlands (Table 1).

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.

Study site depicting agro-ecoregions of New Mexico.

Citation: Weather, Climate, and Society 16, 4; 10.1175/WCAS-D-23-0098.1

We invited Extension staff via email to participate in phone interviews, audio-recorded interviews, and transcribed them verbatim into Microsoft Word documents. We shared the transcriptions with participants to review for accuracy and to provide any information they did not get to share during the interview. We discontinued interviews after meeting three criteria: 1) we had spoken with at least two Extension staff from each agro-ecoregion, 2) the rate of similar ideas emerging in interviews exceeded new ideas (Saldana 2013), and 3) remaining potential participants declined or could not be reached.

We asked questions designed to help us understand climate change perceptions among participants and their clientele; relationships between participants and their clientele; and climate impacts, adaptation options, and resources. On the first iteration of interview analysis, we read through each interview transcript and focus-coded text based upon explicit answers to our interview questions. This process resulted in a series of structural (question-based) codes (Guest et al. 2017). We then repeated this step but shifted to open coding, allowing information to organize naturally into themes and crafting a series of thematic codes (Charmaz 2006). We then organized these codes under encompassing themes through a process of axial coding. We documented the structural and thematic codes into a codebook which included the code names, description of the code, an example of interview text, and why creating this code is important to our study. Using different functions in the Excel Spreadsheet, we explored how different themes occurred across different agro-ecoregion. We validated these relationships through additional conversations with topical experts, literature searches, and discussion among authors.

3. Results

We interviewed 15 Extension staff. Most participants served as agriculture agents; however, some hold additional roles as program directors, 4-H agents, or Tribal agents. One served in a position that covers the entire state. Another served as an Extension specialist in a neighboring state but worked previously in New Mexico. Six participants identified as female. Eight participants had more than 10 years of experience working with CES.

Participants reported a variety of reactive and proactive (Roche 2016) drought adaptations as occurring within their agro-ecoregions (Table 2). While adaptations appear consistent across regions, certain factors affect how Extension can influence and support adaptation. These factors fall into two categories: 1) those that relate to the interpersonal relationships among Extension and their ranching clientele and 2) those that emerge from broader structural barriers. Both sets of factors challenge current Extension programmatic and network structure but highlight novel and creative opportunities to pursue.

Table 2.

Drought responses, reactive and proactive, by agro-ecoregion. An asterisk (*) indicates adaptation present in region, but not popular due to cost of effectiveness.

Table 2.

a. Interpersonal factors

Some participants perceived that clientele use other advisory services over Extension, such as Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farm Service Agency, or private contractors. They suspect this preference may result from a lack of understanding as to what services Extension provides, suggesting a need to evaluate how Extension services are communicated among clientele: “There is really a lack of knowledge of [Extension programs] to really assist these farmers and ranchers. I just think that some of them want it, but I think they don’t know where to get it from” (Colorado Plateau). In some instances, participants noted that younger clientele prefer online resources over in-person programming, while other participants felt that in-person learning opportunities are essential to behavior change:

If I can get them to a program or a workshop where they can see or hear from people who have had some struggles or been in their same position. Ya know, changing that perception helps a bunch. “It worked for my neighbor, maybe I can too.” (southern Rockies).

Some participants suggested ranchers can be apprehensive of knowledge, resources, or practices outside of their current toolbox (usually passed down by ranch predecessors), which may make them skeptical to advice from Extension staff. A participant from the central plains stated that

there are so many things that I see that could be changed and you try to work it in conversations but it falls on deaf ears because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” I mean I think there’s good to that—the consistency, and the tradition, and whatever—but that’s also a big hindrance.

This experience might be heightened for female participants. An agent from the High Plains explained, “And you know, I think it’s really hard for me because like I said, I’m a woman in my county. And I do have some who respect me, but I do have others that it doesn’t matter if I told them one hundred times or proved something was right, they’re not going to believe me.”

b. Structural and systemic factors

Participants reported a variety of adaptation challenges ranchers face that exceed the rancher–Extension dynamic and, often, the capacity of Extension to address. These factors include evolving land uses, economic conditions, political interventions or inaction, and mental health.

A common response to drought is to seek additional land with sufficient forage, as arid environments require more land per animal unit to minimize degradation and sustain forage yields. Encroachment of shrub species, forage decline (quantity and quality), and decreased connectivity due to development and rugged topography heighten the competition for available land among ranchers and between other industries. A participant from the southern Rockies observed, “There’s a scramble of who is going to get [land], because everybody wants to expand. There’s no more land, we’re just trying to get what’s available.” Oil and gas development has influenced land value, movement of ranchers, and land availability. A participant from the High Plains stated, “We’ve had an anomaly around here lately. Oil and natural gas have bought out people that are in an oil and gas patch [within the county]. They can sell their ranch for a bucket of money and then have moved up and bought other places that they can afford and get them away from the oil and natural gas down there.” A participant from the transition mountains explained the following:

I am anti-this, but a lot of big oil money is coming into the county buying up ranches and so then one owner owns a lot of ranches … So we’ve had some producers beg, barter, and plead with some of these folks to “hey, will you let me put my cattle on your operations even if it’s just for two months,” and so lease agreements are worked out and that kind of thing.

Ranchers whose properties offer valuable access to oil or gas may be offered multiple times worth their property’s original value to sell the land. A participant from the transition mountains stated, “But it’s just pretty hard for a producer to turn down millions of dollars just being dangled in their face, you know, it’s essentially what it comes down to. A place may be worth a million dollars, but if a guy comes up to you and says ‘I’ll give you 11 [million].’”

Movement into the state also influences availability and price of land, challenging ranch succession and longevity as well. An agent from the Colorado Plateau explained the following:

It’s a perfect storm right now because we have a huge influx of west coast and east coast people moving in right now. So housing prices, land prices, are through the roof. There’s not enough houses or land, so land prices are going up, and you’re having this succession to this younger generation, and this younger generation is going ‘we’re in a drought, the market’s horrible, and we could essentially turn this ranch around, or get rid of it, and we’re set for the rest of our lives.

These barriers pose even greater challenges for smaller operations that have less flexibility to adapt without losing the ranch altogether. A participant from the High Plains explained, “[A] lot of these smaller operators are working with a lot less land mass; and so sometimes, they’re in a predicament where they don’t have any place else to go, they can’t reduce stocking rate without depopulating the cow herd, and that might be half their income in that herd.”

Dwindling land availability can prompt less desirable, unsustainable behaviors. For instance, without access to other pastures and lack of quality forage, some producers may opt to move cattle from pastures to feedlots during the traditional summer or fall–winter grazing season (Lardy et al. 2017). A participant from the arid lowlands stated the following:

But the problem is that there’s just not enough forage on the ground to make it feasible to keep rotating those cattle through it. They would be better off, I hate to use this term, but sometimes we’re better off just to dry-lot these cows and feed them up close to the house versus having them spread out where we have to travel further …

Financial constraints emerged as a significant barrier to adaptations. Securing additional land may necessitate further costs (e.g., transportation of cattle) and bring risks (e.g., the possibility that original pastures do not recover despite time ungrazed). A participant from the arid lowlands explains the trade-offs of seeking additional land:

You cannot hardly do that when some of those leases over there are going for over fifty dollars a head unit. That gets pretty pricey, too. You can feed quite a few cattle for that … Should they move them, crate them somewhere? Or should they just leave them right here and bring them every bite that they’re eating to keep them in a body-score condition that keeps them healthy and able to breed back and raise a calf and wean that calf for us.

Further, as need for supplemental feed increases with forage decline, expenses and time spent acquiring feed increase as well. A participant from the southern Rockies explained, “The most available feed we have in our area would probably be corn and alfalfa. And that would come out of [Navajo Agricultural Products Industry]. And from where I live, that’s a 150- to 160-mile trip, one way.” Locations of other resources, such as water and veterinary services, may be cost and time prohibitive to access.

Without funding support for adaptation implementation, such as through programs offered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, many practices are cost prohibitive to ranchers. Participants, however, mentioned that applications are challenging processes: “The process needs to be a little easier or shortened as far as the process of applications and I think more and more applications need to be approved than denied, ya know, because it’s all for conservation practices” (southern Rockies). Regardless of funding for practices, ranchers may still encounter roadblocks. For instance, special interest groups who lobby or advocate on behalf of environmental issues (e.g., endangered species) may indefinitely halt or prohibit certain ranch management tasks:

And what you see repeatedly is when new concepts are trying to be introduced or done, there may be push-back within the agency, and there may be push-back from the producer, but more importantly there is push-back from special interest groups that are watchdogs on these agencies, and they’ll make a move to hinder it. (arid lowlands).

The cattle market, influenced by a variety of inconsistent factors outside the control of ranchers, creates a moving target for ranchers who cannot operate with such flexibility. As ranchers try to destock and sell their cattle in response to drought, the market can flood with supply and cause cattle prices to drop. Ranchers then risk making less than enough money to make the destocking feasible. Some ranchers may try to select cattle breeds better equipped for drought conditions and the environment. However, the qualities of these cattle may not align with the criteria set by the market at that time. A participant from the transition mountains explained the following:

And if you think a black cow tastes better than a white cow or a red cow, then that completely affects how the market perceives the worth of your cows, and that greatly affects your management decisions. So, [the market] is a huge, huge factor that unfortunately we have no control over whatsoever.

These challenges create an intensified need to increase diligence off the ranch. A participant from the transition mountains said the following:

But anymore, you better be in the office doing paperwork, or in Santa Fe lobbying, or visiting with your commissioners, or visiting with your legislators, making sure your will is situated, just all the paperwork associated with the ag industry anymore is just way more critical, I think, than the in the field, on the ground, work.

Among these challenges emerged a new and growing concern among participants: rancher mental health. Participants noted that clientele carry financial and emotional stress from drought impacts and responses, such as cutting herd numbers: “I can tell you that I’ve heard of producers being so depressed or upset about having to sell cattle trying to make ends meet, suicide is kind of an option for them” (southern Rockies). Though a growing concern, if and how Extension addresses declining mental health among ranchers remains insufficiently answered. A participant from the transition mountains states, “Extension as a whole is starting to see that as a problem and we’re trying to figure out ways to help combat that. Sometimes we’re kind of therapists too. Untrained therapists!”—highlighting capacity demands and training needs.

c. Regional differences

Having enough land to ranch serves as one of many prerequisites to ranching longevity, especially since moving or dispersing cattle offers a valuable drought adaptation strategy when faced with forage decline. The arid lowland region exemplifies the importance of available land, as it has lower plant production, greater amounts of bare ground, and requires more land per animal unit. Other regions may be more constrained by competing development. In the regions of northern New Mexico, like the southern Rockies, legacies of small-scale ranching must compete with contemporary development to serve nonrancher in-migrants, leaving little opportunity to expand range if pursued. At the time of this study, dynamics of oil and gas influence occurred primarily in the Colorado Plateau and the High Plains agro-ecoregions.

In the southern Rockies, feed supply centers are limited and located upward of 100 mi from many ranchers. Not only do costs increase when supplies must be hauled over longer distances but also it is harder to respond to unexpected needs in a timely manner.

Market forces—shaped by a feedback network of consumer needs and marketing strategies, with little influence from the producers themselves—can make some drought adaptations (e.g., desert-adapted cattle breeds) unfeasible. This force is especially challenging for small-scale ranchers in the Colorado Plateau and southern Rockies who might benefit from selecting for more adaptive, but less marketable, breeds.

Last, political influence was especially prominent in areas with “checkerboard” land bases that include public land, Tribal, and municipal overlap, such as in the Colorado Plateau and arid lowlands. Ranchers may experience conflicting input from managing agencies and a diffusion of responsibility to solve issues beyond the ranchers’ control. A participant from the Colorado Plateau explains the following:

I think that because of, again, the checkerboards, having multiple agencies—the Navajo Nation, and city of Gallup and McKinley County government involved—the diffusion of responsibility is a very real thing that we’re seeing within this community—‘that’s not my job.’ Everyone’s people benefit from this and everybody’s people suffers from this, but no one agency has actually taken the initiative in moving forward and addressing [issue, like water quantity].

Participants from the Colorado Plateau, transition mountains, and southern Rockies regions perceived that their rancher clientele have high vulnerability to systemwide influences. They described culturally sensitive strategies that new agents have used to reach out to ranchers while navigating an especially diverse clientele and expressed hope that these efforts will help address some of the interpersonal challenges as well. A participant from the Colorado Plateau explains, “We watch our verbiage and our language, because in changing your language that can make a huge difference in being open and understanding to the producer if that makes sense.” Another participant from that region states the following:

I think, honestly, I think it was effort. I think those new agents made it a priority to reach out to the Navajo Nation, to ranchers there in Farmington and Bloomfield, ya know, even Cortez or Dove Creek and say ‘hey, we’re available, we’re having this. Why do not you come and then tell us what you want and then we’ll build a program around you.’

A participant from the transition mountains builds upon the type of effort needed to meet rancher needs: “I have an email blast of like 400 people. So anyways, I put in some kind of agricultural mental health-type publications in there … that way they can read it if they want to, or don’t if they don’t want to, and maybe get something out of it.”

4. Discussion

Extension programs are designed to work at local scales, with agents in each county who can get to know key players and understand important environmental and social contexts that affect agricultural producers and production. Yet, as this research underscores, Extension professionals must help their clientele adapt in the face of influences operating at multiple spatial scales, some particular to a county or agro-ecoregion and others at a wider scale (Greene et al. 2022). Because Extension programs are situated within universities that operate at these larger scales, extension professionals have access to information and resources that may help ranchers understand and respond to these broader forces. However, this also makes an Extension professional’s task more complex as they seek to help their clientele adapt to drought. Our work reveals the scales across which Extension must also navigate as a boundary spanning organization to best support their ranching clientele experiencing drought.

At the interpersonal level, our results demonstrate that Extension must navigate questions of clarity, relevancy, and divergent attitudes. Participants reported that ranching clientele either were not aware of Extension offerings or sought other service providers for agricultural needs. This finding aligns with other studies that examine Extension’s role under changing social and climate conditions (Eanes et al. 2019; Prokopy et al. 2015). It is possible that outreach efforts may help promote awareness; however, this circumstance may illuminate other knowledge-sharing avenues for Extension to prioritize. For instance, Prokopy et al. (2015) explain that while agriculturalists across the Midwest use private service providers over Extension, private providers use Extension-processed information. Kennedy and Brunson (2008) concluded that places with multiple information pathways for ranchers to use at that discretion may be most viable to innovation, such as drought adaptations. It would be worthwhile for Extension to evaluate their networks and identify reliable knowledge disseminators, whether that be other advisory sources or clientele. In our study, there is evidence of early or willing adopters and support that neighbor influence is effective at adaptation uptake, suggesting Extension should maintain and strengthen these relationships. Participants also noted preference for engagement across age groups, suggesting that Extension consider program diversity to meet the needs of differing clientele age demographics.

Whether or not these strategies would support Extension staff that encounter gender biases among ranching clientele is not as clear. Leslie et al. (2019) explain how the predominance of masculinity within agricultural enterprise impedes opportunity for nonmale agriculturalists and limits sustainable agricultural potential. For example, Wilmer and Fernández-Giménez (2016) explain that female ranchers also encountered gendered misconceptions about women’s potential as landscape caretakers and business operators, affecting their bank lending opportunities. While suggestions were made for Extension to better support ranching women lifestyles and decision-making (Wilmer and Fernández-Giménez 2016), more must be understood about supporting minority Extension professionals in this field. Heightened attention is needed to understand how gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and other dimensions of social relationality perpetuate harm and interfere with opportunity and collaboration.

Systemwide factors that affected drought adaptation included evolving land uses, economic conditions, political intervention and inaction, and a decline in mental health. Ackoff et al. (2017) argue that access to land is farmers’ most significant economic challenge. Our study demonstrates New Mexico ranchers also face this barrier. Matters of land, as well as wealth, access, and resources, are inevitably subject to hierarchical organization and injustice (Leslie et al. 2019). This idea is exemplified by the power dynamics we observed in this study, where livestock and feed market forces, oil and gas industry competition for land, and government influence limit drought adaptation strategies. Research demonstrates how structural political–economics inequalities leave few options for landowners but to accommodate the energy industry (Malin 2014; Malin and DeMaster 2016). For example, oil and gas expansion succeeds by buying out financially exhausted ranchers. While extravagant purchase offers from oil and gas firms, and the subsequent lifestyle change, might be worthwhile for individual ranchers (Haggerty et al. 2019), this dynamic threatens an already dwindling rancher population (Munden-Dixon et al. 2019), especially as land values exceed what is reasonable for young or new ranchers. Not only does oil and gas outcompete ranching for land but also the property values increased by these transactions create a barrier to those seeking to purchase land to disperse cattle herds. Participants explained how some ranching clientele share land to offset the challenge of limited and expensive land availability, suggesting a promising opportunity for Extension to connect clientele with able and interested ranching partners. Extension could help ranchers overcome time and bureaucratic limitations through support in external funding attainment (Obiora 2013); however, whether or not Extension can engage in advocacy efforts to change these processes, defend against oil and gas encroachment, or change market dynamics, is not well understood.

Psychological distress and suicide rates are far higher in agricultural communities than among the general population due to occupational stress and hardship (Cuthbertson et al. 2022). Drought and climate change exacerbate these stresses. Lack of access to mental health care and stigma also contribute to this disparity (Blankenship et al. 2020). For instance, rural values, such as self-reliance, distrust of outsiders, and religiosity, may negatively impact a person’s willingness to seek mental health support (Blankenship et al. 2020). As drought and other climate impacts worsen, the mental health impacts to agricultural communities may as well. In a recent study, researchers observed a high correlation between climate risk perception and climate anxiety, with profitability as the primary concern (Howard et al. 2020). Grief, alcoholism, and interpersonal tension have been reported during instances of destocking in drought (Saliman and Petersen-Rockney 2022). Various initiatives, such as the Stemming the Tide of Rural Economic Stress and Suicide Act, aim to address the specific stressors related to farmer mental health, while local programs have emerged to train community members in mental health literacy and intervention (Blankenship et al. 2020). For Extension aiming to address mental health, support that increases social interaction (Blankenship et al. 2020) and rancher sense of control over ranch operations (Howard et al. 2020) has been proposed to mitigate declining mental health.

Our findings also illustrate that the most influential factors affecting drought adaptation can vary across agro-ecoregions. In New Mexico, these differences are both environmental and sociocultural. Ranches in the southern Rockies can receive 3 times as much annual precipitation as those in the arid lowlands, High Plains, or Colorado Plateau. While this circumstance can buffer against drought to some extent, ranching practices developed for a more mesic precipitation regime may be unsuited to the warmer, drier climate expected in coming years. In the drier parts of the state, aquifers underlying the eastern High Plains offer adaptation options not available to ranchers operating on the sandstone plateaus of northwest New Mexico. The central plains and transition mountain regions are more sparsely populated, potentially offering more opportunities for ranchers to adapt by gaining access to more land, but topography makes a greater proportion of that land ungrazable.

Social factors also differ across regions. Ranchers in the southern Rockies, where Hispanic families have raised cattle for more than three centuries, face different challenges than do the predominantly non-Hispanic white ranchers of the arid lowlands or High Plains or Native American livestock producers on the Colorado Plateau (Horst and Marion 2019). Operation size and business structure are likely to differentiate across these regions as well. Oil and gas development on the High Plains presents economic pressures to ranchers that are not experienced in the transition mountains or central plains, while in-migration to agricultural communities in parts of the arid lowlands and southern Rockies presents different challenges than are experienced in other regions. These differences suggest that adaptation strategies and options, and Extension’s role therein, can differ from region to region.

The county-based Extension model attempts to address this to some extent, but even so there can be scale mismatch. Research-based Extension tools and materials are generally developed at the state university for statewide distribution, but may be more applicable in some regions more than others. Similarly, USDA programs designed to buffer ranchers against drought-driven catastrophe typically are designed to be applied across the country. As a result, they may be most easily used by the ranchers who fit a national norm: non-Hispanic white males with fairly large contiguous ranch holdings, which is not the norm in most regions of New Mexico.

Because the southwestern United States is defined by landscape diversity (natural landforms, elevation gradients, and water availability) and sociocultural diversity (large rural Hispanic and Native American populations and development pressures) (Elias et al. 2018), vulnerability to drought and climate change impacts also varies within the region. As demonstrated by our findings, specific sources and drivers of vulnerability differ across agro-ecoregions. Extension professionals hoping to reduce vulnerability and improve drought resilience will need different skills and knowledges depending on where they work within New Mexico.

The diversity of skills associated with the matters described above may not be taught in precareer academic or professional training, nor may be explicitly detailed as an essential job responsibility (Goodrich et al. 2020). Roles of boundary organization staff often blur and compound given the unique nature of their operations, sometimes exceeding the capacity of service provision and threatening burnout (Eanes et al. 2019; Goodrich et al. 2020). Training to increase awareness, competence, and confidence in matters of mental health, social relationality, or advocacy would be supremely valuable to Extension efforts but should be complemented with support that lessens the work-load and assumed expectations of Extension personnel. As demonstrated in this study, and supported in the literature (Prokopy et al. 2015; Eanes et al. 2019), Extension’s greatest asset is its professional network. Efforts that strengthen and expand it, particularly across sectors and scales, would be invaluable to drought and other climatic adaptation needs. This effort would be especially important in regions with majority populations of groups underserved by the U.S. government, mostly small livestock operations, or long distances to agency offices.

5. Conclusions

Extension has significant potential to aid in rancher drought adaptations; however, Extension faces service provision challenges at the interpersonal and structural scales, which can manifest differently across agro-ecoregions. Extension should build and evaluate their network channels to devise the most effective deliveries of their expertise and resources. Extension may consider expanding its training opportunities to bolster staff awareness and confidence around issues such as mental health, policy and advocacy opportunity, and financial literacy to help navigate the stressors that are most salient at an agro-ecoregion level. This presents an excellent opportunity to bring enhanced focus to sociocultural differences that emerge across these regions, such as ranch type, cultural legacies, and matters of equity, as well as how Extension perspectives may miss or misinterpret voices in their region. Relatedly, increasing localized opportunities for clientele, Extension, and other service providers to convene and discuss needs together could enhance interpersonal dynamics while streamlining the identification of solutions and partnership opportunities. However, clarifying the roles of Extension versus what should be addressed by other partners or structural change would help protect the capacity of Extension professionals. Building flexibility, accessibility, and local adaptability into government drought assistance programs, resources, and tools to meet various contexts and needs may help address the geographic differences in adaptive capacity. Especially in counties with majority populations of groups underserved by the U.S. government, mostly small livestock operations, or long distances to agency offices, simplification of application processes can be critically important.

Acknowledgments.

We live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of Apache, Navajo, Pueblo, Goshute, Shoshone, Ute, and Paiute peoples. We acknowledge there are painful histories of dispossession of these lands and the ways in which drought and climate change exacerbate impacts from these injustices. When studying drought impact and response, we urge that researchers acknowledge these histories for comprehensive understandings and creation of just solutions. We thank Nathan Sayre, William deBuys, Kimberly Jackson, and Sierra Heimel, who have guided our work by connecting seemingly discrete ideas, offering additional informational resources, and technical support. Lastly, we extend our deepest gratitude to the participants of our study who shared their time, thoughtfulness, and expertise.

Data availability statement.

The identity-protected interview transcriptions, interview codebook, and data dictionary are published and publicly available within the United States Departure of Agriculture’s Ag Data Commons at this location: https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1526540 (Dinan et al. 2022).

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Save
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    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
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    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
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    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Brown, J. R., D. Kluck, C. McNutt, and M. Hayes, 2016: Assessing drought vulnerability using a socioecological framework. Rangelands, 38, 162168, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2016.06.007.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Brugger, J., K. L. Hawkes, A. M. Bowen, and M. P. McClaran, 2018: Framework for a collaborative process to increase preparation for drought on U.S. public rangelands. Ecol. Soc., 23, 18, https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10503-230418.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Charmaz, K., 2006: Constructing Grounded Theory. Sage Publishing, 208 pp.

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    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Church, S. P., M. Dunn, N. Babin, A. S. Mase, T. Haigh, and L. S. Prokopy, 2018: Do advisors perceive climate change as an agricultural risk? An in-depth examination of Midwestern U.S. Ag advisors’ views on drought, climate change, and risk management. Agric. Hum. Values, 35, 349365, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-017-9827-3.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Cook, E. R., R. Seager, M. A. Cane, and D. W. Stahle, 2007: North American drought: Reconstructions, causes, and consequences. Earth-Sci. Rev., 81, 93134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2006.12.002.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Coppock, D. L., 2011: Ranching and multiyear droughts in Utah: Production impacts, risk perceptions, and changes in preparedness. Rangeland Ecol. Manage., 64, 607618, https://doi.org/10.2111/REM-D-10-00113.1.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Coppock, D. L., 2020: Improving drought preparedness among Utah cattle ranchers. Rangeland Ecol. Manage., 73, 879890, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2020.08.003.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Cuthbertson, C., and Coauthors, 2022: Developing and implementing farm stress training to address agricultural producer mental health. Health Promot. Pract., 23, 810, https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839920931849.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Didier, E. A., and M. W. Brunson, 2004: Adoption of range management innovations by Utah ranchers. J. Range Manage., 57, 330336, https://doi.org/10.2111/1551-5028(2004)057[0330:AORMIB]2.0.CO;2.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Dinan, M., M. Brunson, E. Elias, and J. Brown, 2022: Data from: ‘Drowning in Drought’: County-level drought vulnerability and adaptive capacity of New Mexico Ranchers. Ag Data Commons, accessed 7 July 2023, https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1526540.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Dreaming New Mexico, 2021: Agro-ecoregions. Accessed 5 January 2022, https://dreamingnewmexico.bioneers.org/food-farming/agro-ecoregions/.

  • Eanes, F. R., A. S. Singh, B. R. Bulla, P. Ranjan, M. Fales, B. Wickerham, P. J. Doran, and L. S. Prokopy, 2019: Crop advisers as conservation intermediaries: Perceptions and policy implications for relying on nontraditional partners to increase U.S. farmers’ adoption of soil and water conservation practices. Land Use Policy, 81, 360370, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.054.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Elias, E., J. Reyes, C. Steele, and A. Rango, 2018: Diverse landscapes, diverse risks: Synthesis of the special issue on climate change and adaptive capacity in a hotter, drier Southwestern United States. Climatic Change, 148, 339353, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2219-x.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Fanok, L., B. Beltrán, M. Burnham, and C. B. Wardropper, 2021: Visions for large landscape drought resilience in rangelands. Rangelands, 43, 4756, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2020.11.003.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • FAO, 1996: Agro-ecological zoning guidelines, FAO Soils Bulletin 76, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 78 pp., https://www.faoswalim.org/resources/Agriculture/AGRO-ECOLOGICAL_ZONING_Guidelines.pdf.

  • Ghajar, S., M. E. Fernández-Giménez, and H. Wilmer, 2019: Home on the digital range: Ranchers’ web access and use. Rangeland Ecol. Manage., 72, 711720, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2018.12.009.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Goodrich, K. A., K. D. Sjostrom, C. Vaughan, L. Nichols, A. Bednarek, and M. C. Lemos, 2020: Who are boundary spanners and how can we support them in making knowledge more actionable? Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustainability, 42, 4551, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.01.001.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Greene, C., H. Wilmer, D. B. Ferguson, M. A. Crimmins, and M. P. McClaran, 2022: Using scale and human agency to frame ranchers’ discussions about socio-ecological change and resilience. J. Rural Stud., 96, 217226, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.11.001.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Guest, G., E. Namey, J. Taylor, N. Eley, and K. McKenna, 2017: Comparing focus groups and individual interviews: Findings from a randomized study. Int. J. Soc. Res. Methodol., 20, 693708, https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2017.1281601.

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