Rebuilding after extreme weather events such as wildfires and flooding can be a tedious task. A new grant will help the Cooperative Extension Service at New Mexico State University aid agricultural producers with these efforts.

NMSU is one of two universities in the country that was awarded a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. NMSU’s project, “Implementation of virtual fencing technology to build resiliency of agriculture systems impacted by wildfire and subsequent flooding,” will receive $222,192 from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative - Rapid Response to Extreme Weather Events Across Food and Agriculture Systems program.

Craig Gifford, Extension beef cattle specialist, and Santiago Utsumi, Animal and Range Sciences associate professor, are leading the one-year project, and team members include, Sara Marta, Sierra County program director; Doug Cram, Extension forest and fire specialist; Marcy Ward, Extension livestock specialist; Tom Dean and Marshal Wilson, co-directors of the Southwest Border Protection and Emergency Preparedness Center; and Casey Spackman, Extension range specialist.

“Our overall goal is to utilize rapid response funding to immediately engage with wildfire-impacted producers to alleviate their overwhelming fencing repair nightmare and impediments to manage livestock properly by utilizing a reliable virtual fencing technology,” Gifford said. “In addition, by introducing and teaching producers this 21st century approach to containing livestock and managing grazing distribution, we believe they may become early adopters of this technology, which can ultimately help them better manage and recover their rangelands.”

NMSU’s project will address a need for ranching infrastructure after hundreds of miles of fences were destroyed in the Black Fire in 2022. More than 325,000 acres of forest and rangelands in the southern portion of the Gild National Forest were burned and affected the forage base that area ranchers rely on to maintain their operations.

While the rangelands are now recovering, maintaining boundaries between grazing management allotments is a challenge. NMSU’s project will utilize innovative virtual fencing technology to aid ranchers in grazing management until fencing systems can be rebuilt.

“The long-term goal associated with this objective is to invigorate ranch and rangeland resilience through implementation of digital tools and approaches for virtual fencing, tracking of livestock and precision ranch management,” Gifford said.

The project will be conducted on three ranches and grazing allotments covering thousands of acres of rugged rangeland and open savannas with 300 crossbred cattle that will be collared for one year. It will use a virtual fence collar and dashboard monitoring system manufactured by Vence.

Key objectives of the project consist of training producers on the use of virtual fencing to contain livestock, implementing ways to manage livestock grazing distribution, and facilitating the recovery of rangelands impacted by wildfire in the state. NMSU also has plans to determine best use practices for virtual fences in extensive livestock production systems and evaluate rangeland indicators in response to grazing management through virtual fence use and to establish framework for the use of virtual fencing during and after natural disasters.

Gifford said he hopes results from this project will provide an example of how to use inventive technologies to address problems associated with wildfire in extensive pasture systems.