This op-ed by Josh Ciardullo appeared on On Land on August 8, 2026
Turn on any news outlet today and you’ll hear about drought, forage shortages, water rights, and shrinking reservoirs. Those are real issues, and they deserve our attention.
But I believe there’s another drought that isn’t getting nearly enough attention.
It’s a drought of opportunity for the next generation of ranchers.
My family is living it right now. My wife, Erica, and I own and operate Ciardullo Ranch, a first-generation ranch in Colorado. We currently run about 70 head in a small cow-calf operation, raising 100% pasture-raised beef using regenerative grazing practices. We didn’t inherit a family ranch. We built this operation from the ground up through leased ground, hard work, and a belief that healthy land produces healthy cattle.
In eight months, the lease we’ve called home for the past several years will not be renewed as the property transitions to a nonprofit with a different vision for the land. We respect that decision. Every landowner has the right to choose the future of their property.
The challenge is finding another place to go.
Why Leases Are So Hard to Find
Over the past several months we’ve searched across multiple states looking for grazing ground. What we’ve found is that access to land — not cattle prices, not weather — is one of the biggest challenges facing first-generation ranchers.
Private leases are the backbone of many operations in Colorado, but they rarely come open. Most have been held by the same families for generations, and when one does change hands, it’s usually because a neighbor picked it up — someone already known and trusted by the landowner. First-generation ranchers are outside riders in that world. We don’t have the family history or the long-standing relationships that let us hear about a lease before it’s gone, and without that trust already built, it’s hard to even get considered.
Public land isn’t necessarily an easier path. Leases on state trust land, national forest allotments, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) permits are structurally built to favor whoever already holds them:
- State trust land: In Colorado, agricultural and grazing leases on state trust land run on ten-year terms, and statute gives the existing lessee real advantages at renewal. Before the State Land Board can put the lease out to competitive bid, the current lessee gets notice and a negotiation window. If it does go to bid, that lessee has the right to match the highest offer. If the lessee chooses not to match, the Board evaluates the competing applicants and decides who takes over the lease, weighing factors like the stewardship and care the applicant would bring to the land and the benefit to the trust.
- Forest Service and BLM grazing permits: To even apply for a U.S. Forest Service term grazing permit, an applicant generally has to already own “base property” — land tied to that specific allotment — as well as the livestock to graze it. And under both agencies, a permit can’t simply be handed from one operator to another; it’s tied to the base property, so it only moves when that property changes hands. In practice, that means access to public grazing land is gated by access to private land in the first place.
Taken together, these systems make sense from a stability standpoint — they reward stewardship and long-term investment in the land. But they also mean a first-generation rancher without inherited property or an existing lease is often locked out of both the public and private sides of the market at once.
The Economics Don’t Pencil Out
People often ask why we don’t just buy a ranch. The answer is simple. In many parts of the West, ranch values have climbed so high that the numbers no longer work. It’s difficult to finance a multi-million-dollar ranch that may only support a relatively small cow herd. No matter how hard you’re willing to work, the economics often don’t pencil out.
An Aging Generation, and a Closing Window
At the same time, the average age of the American farmer or rancher is now 58.1 years old, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture — up from 57.5 in 2017 and part of a long trend of the industry getting older. That’s a generation of ranchers who have spent a lifetime building something worth protecting. As many begin thinking about retirement, I hope succession planning becomes part of the conversation — not just for their families, but for the future of agriculture.
Giving a young ranching family the opportunity to lease, purchase, or gradually transition into an operation may be one of the most important investments we can make in the future of this industry.
We don’t have a shortage of people willing to work. We have a shortage of opportunities for them to get started.
Where This Leaves Us
Our family isn’t asking for a handout. We’re simply looking for a place to continue doing what we love — raising cattle, caring for the land, and producing quality beef. If you own grazing property, know someone considering retirement, or are aware of long-term grazing opportunities for a cow-calf operation of around 70 head, we’d love to have a conversation.
We can all pray for rain, and we should.
But let’s not forget about the drought nobody is talking about. Because even when the rain returns, someone still has to be there to care for the land.
This article first appeared on On Land and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
'On Land' is published by Western Landowners Alliance, which strives to advance policies and practices that sustain working lands, connected landscapes and native species.