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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Mike Brasher: Hey everybody, welcome back. I am Dr. Mike Brasher, and I'm going to be your host on this episode. I have a guest in studio with me, and it's a treat to be able to sit down with this guy. He is here for, I guess, a couple of days maybe, and we Thought it'd be great to have him join us in the studio to talk about some of the work that he does. That is Ryan Taylor, Director of Public Policy for the Great Plains Region. And before you tune out, because this is another policy episode, it's not. Stay with us. This is actually going to be a pretty cool stuff. Ryan is a rancher and farmer and helps us out with some of the important work that we're doing there in the prairies. So, Ryan, great to have you here.
Ryan Taylor: Yeah, good to be here, Mike. Sometimes I call myself the rancher in residence at the Great Plains office, along with my work of public policy, and they all go hand in hand. Policy is aided by good relationships in the farm and ranch community, for sure.
Mike Brasher: Yeah. And you, you have, I want to get into some of your personal and professional background. The one thing that anytime I think of you now, Ryan, it's the first thing that comes to mind is your presentation. Was it last year or two years ago? It was in, it was in New Orleans, right? Okay. At the Ducks Unlimited National Convention, you came on stage wearing a cowboy hat. uh, with, uh, with the lasso and I guess that's the right terminology. And you proceeded to do a little, I don't know, describe what you were doing. Cause I don't want to get the terms wrong.
Ryan Taylor: Well, if, if folks remember, uh, you know, a century or so ago, a guy named Will Rogers was a rope spreader and a vaudeville guy and a columnist. I, I wrote a column called cowboy logic and egg magazines around the Western U S and Canada for a number of years. And. I would do banquet talks, they'd invite you to come speak and have roast beef supper with them. And along with the stories and a little humor, I would spin ropes like Will Rogers would. So they're just tricks that you might've seen at a rodeo many years ago, but I say it's just kind of a sign of a wasted youth that I know how to spin rope rather than shoot pool or something else useful.
Mike Brasher: Do you still do that on occasion?
Ryan Taylor: Yeah, I do. And we rope, obviously, when we brand calves and stuff. So I'm swinging a rope for real purposes from time to time. And the tricks like I did in New Orleans are just for fun and maybe good calisthenics to keep an aging body in shape.
Mike Brasher: You know, one of the things that I've noticed in a couple of instances when we hire people to work on policy within Ducks Unlimited, we hire people that we know understand the issues and have credibility with the people for whom those decisions and issues are important. Kirby Brown in Texas, he was a policy. staffer there who was working on some water issues in Texas. And so he had a lot of experience there as well, knew the people, knew the issues. The same is the case with you. And so I want you to talk about your background in that regard. Where'd you grow up? Obviously, you're going to have ranching in your background. It goes back a long way, I've learned. And so tell us about that. And then how did you come to DU?
Ryan Taylor: You bet. Policy, like a lot of things, is a people business, and anything dealing with people deals with trust, right? So as you mentioned, I was born and raised in North Dakota, so I'm a fourth generation rancher there. My great granddad and his brothers came and settled around 1900. The first homestead was filed in 1903. So we have a long history on the landscape as a family. And I came back to the ranch right after college at NDSU, and I started writing a column. I was ranching with my father who had Parkinson's disease at that time, so I was kind of filling in where his body was starting to fail him to some extent. We have done a number of things on this old ranch besides doing the ranching with the cattle. We have a hay land, a little bit of alfalfa, and a little bit of cover crops right now, but it's mostly a cattle and hay operation. So I ended up doing a little work in policy and politics as a member of the North Dakota Senate and the legislature, was at USDA Rural Development for an appointment at one time. I did some freelance government affairs for different folks, and the DU job came open. And I've always been a hunter, more of an upland hunter as a kid. Sharptail grouse were kind of my jam, and always get a whitetail tag for the ranch. But we're doing a little more waterfowl hunting now, and it was a group I was familiar with. Bile just were out doing nest counts on our ranch and different things. We have a conservation easement on our ranch with Fish and Wildlife Service. We interact with a lot of the same programs that DU does, whether it's fencing and water and conservation, public hunting through game and fish program. And yeah, it's been just over five years now and it's been a great fit.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, well, it's your second time back at headquarters, you were telling us, and so I made the comment that that means that you're doing great. It means we didn't have to bring you back for additional training, and so everything that I've heard about you and the work that you're doing is phenomenal, and it is great to sit down with you. What does your work entail when we talk about policy? What does that look like? Help explain that to our listeners. And how much, how involved do you get with landowners or do you at all with your current position? I know we have a lot of biologists and other folks that interact directly. That's their primary job. But for a policy position, how much do you get to interact with landowners these days? And then how much of it is spent like with legislators and whatever else?
Ryan Taylor: You know, there's a lot of the usual blocking and tackling in the role of public policy. I have three states, North and South Dakota, Montana, so state capitals and Helena, Pierre, and Bismarck keep me busy when sessions are in play. And that's interesting, and at least my states, they're part-time legislatures for the most part, biannual in North Dakota and Montana. So the legislators themselves, a number of them are often farmers and ranchers. So they know what's all going on in the landscape and some of the programs that we're dealing with. You're in the capital with members of the Stockman's Association or the Cattlemen's or the Soybean Growers or what have you. So you're interacting with agriculture and producers kind of on the daily, even in public policy. And we're there to look at policies that advance DU's interest, whether it's like the Habitat Montana program or the North Dakota Outdoor Heritage Fund programs that we use as state match dollars for the things we do out on the landscape. But I'm often doing that alongside folks that are in production agriculture because my background And being a rancher myself, still run cows, still get up to the ranch every week. I do find myself working with our biologists maybe more than some do, because I know some folks that they need to know, and I'm glad to help make those introductions. And if we've improved our stead out in the countryside, they do it every day as biologists. And if I can help them from the policy side, those relationships with farmers and ranchers at the driveway level, really help our work be more successful and also helps them be more successful. And I've got a big heart for wanting agriculture and my neighbor ranchers and families to be successful out on the landscape.
Mike Brasher: Do you have any examples where After coming to Ducks Unlimited, you found yourself in conversations with other staff, biologists, and other folks, engineers, that may not have a farming and ranching background, and you hear them talking about an issue or a potential solution, and you realize that the lens through which they're viewing this is not the appropriate lens to be viewing it relative to what's going to be successful. Did you find yourself? Is that happening every now and then?
Ryan Taylor: I do. Agriculture is a pretty intricate and sometimes complex business. And unless you've lived it, it's hard to know. And there's a lot of things I don't know. I mean, I do know the cattle side pretty well. I know the farming side from my work with neighbors and folks that I've gone to college and grown up with. But sometimes it deals with what's economic. There's going to be a bottom line for a lot of producers. And we may be driven by our passion for conservation. And a lot of my neighbors will have a passion for conservation as well. But if they can't feed their kids or send them to college and pay the bills, it's going to be a hard sale.
Mike Brasher: The conservation passion would be secondary to them for their livelihood and that of their kids and families, right?
Ryan Taylor: Yep. So, you know, maybe sometimes I help them approach it from that angle that, you know, this is a great idea for conservation. How can we make sure it is a win-win? for the producers as well. And we found those, and those end up, I think, being our most successful programs where our goals are being met, but then that rancher or farmer's goals are being met at the same time.
Mike Brasher: We've been working on private land with agricultural producers, with ranchers, as long as we've been in existence. And here recently, we've been accelerating our work in that space. We've been using different programs. We've become involved in some more innovative programs. And I think that's one of the reasons, or probably the main reason why you're even here today, is we have a, there is a meeting of the, what did we say it was? Conservation Technology Innovation Council, or is it?
Ryan Taylor: Our Information Council, but CTIC.
Mike Brasher: Okay, CTIC, and it's a group of agricultural producers, ranchers, from, well, it'll be interesting to see how widely diverse, from a geography standpoint, this this group is gonna be. I know we have folks from the Soybean Growers Association. I forget who else, but I mean there's 50, 70 attendees.
Ryan Taylor: Yeah, and there'll be some industry folks there, and I suppose today will be a little bit more folks that are closer to Memphis, but this meeting does travel around the country and may even get into the Great Plains in one of the future renditions of it. So yeah, it'll be a good group for us to be with. And as you mentioned, private lands is gonna be huge, especially in my part of the world, probably a lot of places, but the Dakotas are more than 90% privately owned. Montana's maybe a little less so, but if we're gonna do conservation, it's gonna be with someone who owns that land, maybe has for generations, and is trying to make a living on it.
Mike Brasher: One of the other big discussion points later today is going to intersect the rice agriculture industry, and I know we have a lot of representatives from that. From that group, we have a lot of rice farmers that'll be here. We have Arkansas Rice is going to have some representatives and a whole host of others, and so we look forward to meeting with them. You're going to be talking about, and I am as well, the prairie pothole region, its importance to ducks, its importance to producers, ranchers, and I think that's where we want to go next is to have you talk about some of the programs that we have. When we say we like to work with ranchers or producers, What does that entail? How do we take those discussions and then develop them into new programs? Or just talk about some of the existing programs that we have that are being most well-received right now.
Ryan Taylor: I think our biologists in the Great Plains have done a nice job of bringing products to market, if you want to call it that, bringing conservation to the landscape that really has a demand. And a couple things in the Dakotas, we talk about soil health programs. We talk about grazing programs, rotational grazing assistance, and they are things that are going on in the landscape, but DU can come out and maybe help take a little bit of the risk out of it and make it go farther. So, soil health is a buzzword to some extent and the five principles of soil health that most people often refer to. Whether we use an outdoor heritage fund like in North Dakota or other types of programs, we're going to be able to show them like in a diversified operation is going to be crop and agriculture. What's the benefits of seeding cover crops that might extend your grazing season, help with water infiltration, help you capture every raindrop in a somewhat sometimes arid weather pattern that we have, and also rebuild the soil health. Now, that's good for ducks because the wetlands are healthier, the water table is healthier, but it's also good for that producer that the soil health means money to their bottom line because there's more of what they need in the soil to grow a crop that they didn't actually have to buy, they just built it naturally. They may have run cattle across it, which when you think about, you know, the Great Plains evolved with bison, and those bison would come around, they'd trample, they'd open up the soil, they would defecate, they'd urinate, all these things. we're actually building soil health and making it better for at that time native grasslands. We can also do that for the grasslands we have now or actually even cattle on cropland are going to help rebuild soil health for that next rotation of a crop that a producer might put in the ground.
Mike Brasher: So, Ryan, I think what we want to do right now is take a break. We've got a few other things to talk about. I might ask you to go back into a bit more detail on some of the policies that may be a priority that we're working on right now across some of those states. You mentioned a couple of them, but there are a few other things that I want to explore with regard to how these programs Maybe some of the other programs that we're offering to producers, we talked about cover crops, but there are some other things that we're doing and helping to facilitate to secure existing habitat that's going to be good for ducks and it's also going to help support some of those ranching and farming operations. So stay with us folks, we'll be right back with a little bit more. Welcome back, everyone. It's Dr. Mike Brasher here, and I've got Ryan Taylor sitting across the desk from me, and we're going to pick up with our conversation on some of the work that he does for farming and ranching policy in the Great Plains. So Ryan, we talked about the cover crops. And those are type of programs that we can offer for on-farm incorporation. There's also easements that we use for protecting intact grasslands, intact wetlands. We had a recent episode where we talked at length about easements, what they are. But it's not… The way we're using those now in the Dakotas can also be used to benefit ranchers and sort of integrated row crop and cattle operations, right?
Ryan Taylor: Yeah, and the easements we're most familiar with in the Dakotas are being offered by Fish and Wildlife Service. There's something that we're supportive of. We actually have one on our own ranch, a mix of grass and wetlands. We've got some really nice sloughs on the ranch. It's typically hay land, meadows that are hayed after July 15th. And when I sold an easement on that, the decision I made as a private property owner within my private property rights to volunteer that, I can graze that land whenever I want, however I want, and I can hay it just after July 15th. And so that involved a transaction that was good for me and my family, my three kids and my wife, and maybe helping kids go to college or expand our operation. in such a way that one of them might be able to come back to the ranch. So the wetland easements that are most common in North Dakota are also fish and wildlife, but you can be farming around those wetlands. You can farm through them if it's dry and actually crop them, but when it's wet, they just ask that you don't drain them, right? Don't drain, dredge, fill, or burn, I think is the litany there. So, they're voluntary tools that help keep wetlands on the landscape. And DU, we obviously want to keep wetlands on the landscape. So, that's one way that folks can do something for the longer term, perpetual in terms of those easements. But our biologists have done a nice job of bringing short-term programs too, five and 10-year programs that are just… helping keep the grass healthy and help keep ranches viable, cross-fencing so that those cattle can mimic the buffalo. So we'll come out there with some DU dollars, donor dollars, but a lot of times it'll be extending NRCS's programs like the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. And they can put in water tanks so that these cattle can drink. They can concentrate on an area and then move to the next and then move to the next. And that's kind of mimicking the Buffalo. Pastures are getting a rest for 60, 70 days, maybe a year before cattle are grazed on it again. And that makes sense for the cattle. They're always got fresh forage in front of them. It's good for the resource. And we always say cattle and ducks get along great. And when they're both on the landscape, they're both doing pretty well.
Mike Brasher: You brought up a good point there, Ryan, about sort of the source of funding for some of these programs. I think there is a misconception that anytime Ducks Unlimited says it's doing work on a certain program in a certain place or certain project, the assumption is that maybe that's all Ducks Unlimited's funding and it originated from the fundraising efforts that we do, our traditional fundraising efforts, and that's not the case. A lot of times we are applying for grants, federal grants, state grants, to deliver programs that that state or federal policy has established and that this is an example where you said RCPP that's a USDA program Regional Conservation Partnership program right and and so within RCPP it pulls from some of the resources that are available through different Farm Bill programs we're talking about a series of Farm Bill you know, programs, initiatives, whatever the term may be. And we are in essence applying for those funds and then helping USDA deliver and get those funds in the hand of producers and ranchers.
Ryan Taylor: And the relationships that our folks have out in the country are kind of helping with that because they know these ranchers in this case and there's a phone call that can go on and someone's on the place helping them do that program. They don't have to go into the county seat to the office necessarily. And when we think about the investments, DU often will help provide the people and some of our donor dollars from these banquets, but a lot of it's coming from the Farm Bill. The biggest investment we make in conservation in this country is through the Farm Bill, which is in play right now and is every five years. But those RCPP dollars, which include things like EQIP, Environmental Quality Incentives. We're gonna throw a lot of acronyms at folks here, but these are dollars that put conservation on the ground. in a variety of ways, conservation stewardship, conservation reserve. These are all things that come through USDA and the Farm Bill in authorization every five years. But it helps good things happen on the ground that DU members will see when the birds start flying. It's things that our ranchers and farmers will see when they can improve their bottom line. And they've done it. Just an interesting story, like one of our biologists is working with an Angus producer. We have this partnership with Certified Angus Beef, which is pretty unique as they tell their sustainability story as a beef product. And he says, there's some decisions I don't make until I've called Tanner at DU because if I'm going to look at renting a neighbor's ground that's got some cropland on it and I want to graze it or what have you, I want to see if DU can come help me with some fence and put in a water tank. And it helps us fulfill our mission, but it helps him and his family fulfill their mission as well. And in the process, he's raising some pretty high quality beef that is also good for conservation.
Mike Brasher: Another important point you raised earlier was the voluntary nature of the programs that we're involved in. Our core philosophy is that we have to work collaboratively with the people that are delivering the habitat. beat people on the head and shoulders, you know, trying to get them, force them into conforming and see things the way that we do. And the voluntary nature of all the programs that we offer, I mean, it has to be very rewarding from your perspective, being able to, I mean, being a rancher yourself and having a lot of those friendships and relationships. And knowing that this works because it will be successful only when it's beneficial to all parties. And that has to be a dramatically different viewpoint than if we were to try to regulate our way to success, right?
Ryan Taylor: Yep, these are incentive-based voluntary programs. And I probably have different analogies than some folks that you might talk to. I've always been a horse trainer. We've raised horses on our ranch since my dad's first registered quarter horse in 1956. And the best relationships you're gonna have with the horse as you're training him or hers is where they come to you. And we do this horse whispering thing in the round pen. And it's the same working with people, right? If you gotta rope them and snub them down, it's not a good trusting relationship. But when you can both meet in the middle, and do your thing, you're going to have a relationship that's going to be ironclad for the life of the horse or the life of our relationship with these producers.
Mike Brasher: You mentioned certified Angus beef. I was talking with someone not too long ago, and I think I maybe even mentioned it on a prior episode, and that is, and you mentioned it also, what's good for beef is good for ducks. So, it occurred to me, you know, when talking to people on a podcast, if they value ducks, if they value healthy duck habitat in the prairies, One of the easiest things for them to do to support those interests is to eat a steak. Go buy some beef, right? Eat a steak. And so, are there ways that we can refine that guidance? You know, you mentioned the relationship with Certified Angus Beef. Is there a way that people, and I'll just sort of expose my complete ignorance of the source of beef in any of our supermarkets. Are there ways that people can know that the beef that they're purchasing is North American produced beef or go even farther than that in any type of certifications that would lead them to think, okay, I'm helping maintain a strong North American beef market that's also going to have benefits for the things that I care about, which is healthy duck populations?
Ryan Taylor: It's evolving, and I think it's evolving pretty quickly, honestly. And Certified Angus, which I mentioned, and we work with all kinds of breeds and producers, obviously, but they're one group that sought DU out. They have a whole sustainability story on their web pages, and they'll highlight, there'll be pictures of some of the work we're doing, actually, with some of these producers in North and South Dakota. So they're extending that out to the marketplace. We're going to be eating beef from a North Dakota ranch here at the CTIC meeting today and their brochures will be on the table. We had prairie experience in North Dakota just last week. And we had one of the producers we work with provided the ribeyes for that meal. And him and his wife came and talked about what they're doing. So it happens in lots of different ways. Some are bigger in the marketplace, like CAB. Others are processing their stuff locally and finding their customers and marketing a little bit more of a niche. But you often find that it's not just the quality and the eating experience and the price and feeling good about the families you're supporting, but they're often telling a conservation story about what they've got for pollinators on the place, what meadowlarks are singing. That's our state bird in North Dakota. But the habitat where those cows are is making all these other things possible.
Mike Brasher: So even if you're not able to find a beef product that has some certification label of any type on it that would be more explicit about providing those benefits, if you're supporting the beef industry, if you're eating beef, you're supporting the larger beef market, which is ultimately good for those that are producing beef on the habitats and landscapes we're concerned about.
Ryan Taylor: The life cycle of the cow and as a rancher, you kind of get to see it from day one when you turn the bulls out to the last day when the product is on your plate. That's a long cycle of conception and breeding and when that calf hits the ground. And a good chunk of that is spent on grass where birds are nesting and they're living in harmony. So, anytime you're looking at those products, you know that you're generally supporting something that kept habitat on the landscape, regardless of the brand. But folks that are doing well are helping tell that story so that you can really see it.
Mike Brasher: Good. So another message there to duck hunters, another way you can lend support to healthy duck populations is to eat beef. And I would be willing to bet that's a message that's going to be well-received by duck hunters.
Ryan Taylor: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's well-received by me as a rancher, for sure.
Mike Brasher: Ryan, as we get close to wrapping up this episode, I did want to come back and give you an opportunity to talk about any high-priority policy issues that may be on your plate right now or that maybe you're eyeing in the near future. So give us a rundown of any of those things.
Ryan Taylor: Well, we're working federally, obviously, on things like the Farm Bill and NACA, North American Wildlands Conservation Act, and those things come to places like North Dakota. At the state level, we are increasingly growing these state funds that are super important, whether it's Outdoor Heritage Fund. That appropriation, helping it get on the ground, that comes from actually an oil and gas tax portion in North Dakota, Habitat Montana in Montana. So these things are often coming at us. Sometimes we're helping out the events system in terms of how they do their raffles and online opportunities. So there's a whole gamut of things, but it almost always comes down to how do we fund our work and how do we make the work easier to implement on the ground? And then part of that, obviously, is having willing participants. And we've been really blessed to have a lot of farmers and ranchers notice DU and notice that our biologists are working hard and wanting to help them out.
Mike Brasher: That's awesome. The last thing, and I actually thought I was going to lead with this, but I forgot about it. I wanted to get you to provide just a quick view of of moisture conditions up in… You're in North Dakota, and so everybody listening to this is wondering about how habitat conditions are. Now, I'm not expecting you to have a comprehensive assessment of habitat conditions, wetland conditions across North Dakota, but on your ranch, how are wetland conditions, soil moisture conditions this year compared to where they were a few months ago, how you thought they might have been going to play out this summer.
Ryan Taylor: Much better than I expected. We had a very dry winter and very warm winter, and we were super worried about moisture. Then the rain started to come. We've gotten several inches since, and our wetlands are pretty full right now. The ducks are out on the landscape. We've recovered from 2021 on our ranch where we had the driest April, May, and June in 137 years of record keeping. So that was apocalyptic on our ranch, and we've been coming back from that. But things are super green right now. The grass is growing, the cows are happy. We're not on the drought map anymore as it stands today. And knock on wood, we'll hopefully keep that going. But ranching and farming is like a lot of things, just tied to the weather. What's the Paul Harvey line? About six inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains. That's what keeps us going. Except we don't have six inches of topsoil in the sand where I get to live, but things look good. The grass is green and we just hope it stays that way.
Mike Brasher: Ryan, it's been great having you here. Great to catch up with you. Um, appreciate all the work, important work that you're doing and the perspective that you bring to this as a, as a rancher. It means a lot, uh, to hear it from you personally. I know it does a lot for DU's credibility in that space. So thank you again for everything that you, that you're doing.
Ryan Taylor: Great to be a part of it all. Thanks for having me.
Mike Brasher: And I will look forward to that, uh, that steak lunch.
Ryan Taylor: Oh, mouth's watering.
Mike Brasher: A very special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Ryan Taylor, Director of Public Policy for the Great Plains region. Appreciate his time and all that he's doing to help us deliver conservation on working lands up in the Dakotas and Montana. As always, we thank our producer, Chris Isaac, who does a terrific job getting these episodes out. And we thank you, the listener, for your time and for your support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation and for eating beef.