SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. — In the forest near this eastern Arizona town, the smell of grilled beef and vegetables permeates the cool summer day. A group of children walk a fallen tree like a tightrope, their shouts echoing through the woods.

The adults set up lunch nearby, ending a morning of moving cattle between pastures. The Brown family owns a ranch in St. Johns — J. A. Brown Ranches — so naturally beef tacos were on the menu for the family picnic.

Jackson Brown banters with his brothers and cousins as they gather around folding tables and sit on stumps, their horses tethered to trees nearby. Jackson’s father, David Brown, looks on, watching his herd of grandchildren.

After spending 10 years traveling the world as an officer for the U.S. Navy, including a three-year stint living in Japan, Jackson Brown ended up back where his life began. He grew up in St. Johns, working on the ranch through his teenage years, and returned with his wife and three kids in 2021.

As his family gathered around him for the impromptu picnic, Jackson remembered why he moved back to manage the ranch.

“Why did we come back? Family,” Jackson said. “The experiences of being with my brothers and cousins, we wanted our children to have the same.”

“This is an amazing place," he said. "It’s home for me.”

His family has raised cattle in the area for the last 140 years. Jackson is the fifth generation to manage the land, following his uncle Norman Brown and grandfather Jack Brown, who served in the Arizona House of Representatives and the state Senate.

Their ancestors were Mormon pioneers who began ranching in northern Arizona in the 1880s. But the industry transformed as the ranch changed hands.

As one of Arizona's Five C’s , the cattle business has historically stood as a key economic driver alongside cotton, citrus, copper and climate. Settlers were drawn to Arizona to establish ranches in the 1800s, with cattle outnumbering people, but overgrazing, drought and conflict with Indigenous tribes made keeping livestock far from easy.

Despite spikes throughout the 1900s, the industry has declined, as ranchers contend with environmental pressures like extreme heat and drought, high prices and federal regulations.

Ranchers and farmers are getting older; the average age of a producer in 2022 was 58.1, an average that has trended upward in recent years, contributing to fears that America’s aging workforce could impact the food supply.

But Jackson is 39 years old, part of a younger generation of ranchers hoping to sustain the industry of their forefathers.

“Markets are changing. You look at the five C’s of Arizona, cattle was just a prime industry up here,” Jackson said. “But all the big ranches have been chopped up. The industry has changed, so you can’t just keep doing the same thing we’ve done for 30 years.”

The Brown clan represents the past, present and future of ranching. So far, they have survived the industry’s downward trend, and Jackson is adapting ranch operations today to survive the future.

“I think it’s exciting,” Jackson said. “There’s a pessimistic view that we’re on a negative trajectory because ranches have been subdivided. But agriculture is still here. As long as we have to eat, it’s not going to go away. So I see it as a positive thing; we’re just changing to adapt.”

Past: A ranch built by pioneers

Cattle have grazed Arizona’s deserts, mountains and forest lands for centuries, long before it achieved statehood. As the mining industry grew and military garrisons were established, early Arizonans needed a guaranteed food supply in an arid ecosystem.

In 1687, Father Francisco Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit priest from Germany, created 24 missions in modern-day Arizona. He wanted to introduce secure food sources, like wheat and livestock, and establish animal husbandry in the area.

By 1700, livestock grazed across the entirety of the state. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, adding the territories of California, New Mexico and Arizona, settlers continued moving west, bringing cattle with them.

The Homestead Act of 1862 spurred growth with an irresistible offer: Anyone who could build a home and work the land was entitled to 160 acres to create farms and ranches.

About 1.5 million cattle grazed in Arizona in 1891, but there was little regulation protecting the land from overgrazing. Overstocking degraded the ecosystem and grass plants declined, worsened by drought.

Cattle prices dropped, making it difficult to sell and decrease herd sizes, and 50 to 75% of livestock died in the summer of 1893 from poor conditions.

This spurred government regulation of livestock numbers and grazing practices, prompting a conservation movement across the Southwest.

Dude ranches popped up throughout Arizona as tourists romanticized cowboys and wanted to experience the Western lifestyle in the 1920s.

Prices fluctuated throughout the 1900s to today, but overall inventory has declined through the decades.

As of Jan. 1, 2024, there were 970,000 cows and calves in Arizona across the beef and dairy industries, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture . Despite cattle's status as one of the five C's, Arizona is ranked 31st in the nation for its cattle inventory.

The Brown’s ranch has survived since the 1880s, despite changes in the industry. Jackson credits his grandfather and uncle's management for keeping the ranch afloat.

“(Norman) kept it growing when a lot of other operations were on the opposite trajectory,” Jackson said.

Some of Norman’s earliest memories are helping his father on the ranch. By age six, he would spend summers trailing his father across pastures, helping fix fences, milking cows and riding horses.

As he grew, so did his responsibilities, and he worked full-time during the summer and throughout the year when he could.

“I always loved it and thought I would be a rancher,” Norman said. “But the reality was that our family was never really well off. I always thought I’d have to work another job and work in agriculture on the side.”

He worked in real estate and took over operations in 1989. Over his lifetime, he and his father accumulated land and expanded the ranch.

They originally had enough land to sustain about 250 cows, but can now keep 950 adults during good water years. During the current long-term drought, the numbers are closer to 650 today.

The Browns have a “hodgepodge” of land according to Norman, with a mix of private property near St Johns, and grazing permits on state lands around the White Mountains.

Norman watched the industry change through the years.

Modern technology has made the job easier. In the 1980s they would send cattle to auction, but now internet sales allow ranchers to do business virtually.

Ranchers have not been exempt from rising costs and inflation. Norman estimates he would have to sell 10 to 15 calves to purchase a new ranch truck a few decades ago. Now he guesses it would take a whole truckload of 90 to 100 calves to make the purchase.

“We get way more dollars per pound of calves sold, but it’s not proportional,” he said. “It costs way more to buy a truck or equipment.”

As the price of beef increases due to supply and demand, ranchers are making more money. But environmental regulations strain how they manage their land.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began reintroducing endangered Mexican gray wolves in Arizona in the 1990s. While wolves tend to hunt elk, they can attack and stress cattle. Protected plants and riparian areas limit how much land can be grazed.

“In some cases, (ranching) probably needs to be controlled better when cattle overgraze river bottoms,” Norman said. “But a lot of ranchers and people up here feel (wolves) have been shoved down our throat. We have to deal with it.”

Now 69, Norman is semi-retired and spends time working on all of the tasks he “should have done in the last several decades.” He still works on the ranch, guiding Jackson as he settles into the role.

“He worked for me for about a year before he took over the management, but it’s hard,” Norman said. “All those little details that can’t be taught by sitting down for a few days or weeks. There are a thousand details to remember: where that valve or system is, how to repair that mill and so on.”

Despite Norman’s advice, he recognizes Jackson has to learn by doing. But so far, he’s happy with what his nephew has accomplished.

“What I like about Jackson is, he’s coming in with a new enthusiasm,” Norman said. “He wants to make some changes, some things that maybe I was a little bit reluctant or afraid to do.”

Present: Running a ranch is harder than fixing a fence

From spending hours fixing a fence just to watch a herd of elk tear it down to crashing ranch vehicles, Jackson has countless memories of teenage antics working on the ranch — and he’s a self-proclaimed expert at fixing fences.

“I don’t know why you guys trusted us, but we were up here alone all the time,” Jackson says sheepishly as he reminisces with his father at the picnic. “We destroyed a lot of equipment. I don’t think I want to hire any teenagers now that I’m on the other side of it.”

Jackson said his family is not the “poster child” for the cowboy lifestyle. They don’t rodeo and he admits he can’t rope cattle.

“It was more about getting the job done," he said. "You went to the ranch to work.”

Despite a lifetime of experience, the transition from ranch hand to manager hasn’t been easy. Running a ranch is much harder than fixing a fence.

Working with animals is always unpredictable. Cattle drives can take twice as long as normal, but on the day of the picnic, it took about an hour when most of the cattle moved themselves through an open gate the night prior.

“A question I always get asked by some of my Navy friends is, ‘Well do you still use horses or four-wheelers?’” Jackson said. “From my perspective, you just use what you have to get the job done.”

“I understand what they’re getting at, though. It’s like, did you lose the heart of the American West or are you still keeping it alive?” Jackson said. “It’s not just four-wheelers. It’s like, are you making an effort to do things the hard way, or are you a sell-out?”

Jackson hopes to make small improvements to the operation to stay productive, but not change too much to risk the business. He built a workshop to replace tires and fix equipment more easily, an expansion his uncle Norman always wanted but never pursued.

While he seeks ways to streamline operations, he acknowledges the value of traditional ranching culture.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture , the average beef cow herd is 44 head. The average lifespan of ranches that get subdivided into smaller parcels is three to four years, according to Jackson. Ranchers will sell whatever they accumulated and pass the land to the next rancher or developer.

“It just means it’s a hobby and not a business for most people,” Jackson said. But he credits hobbyist ranchers for helping keep the industry alive.

There’s an allure to the ranching lifestyle, one that withstands the pressures to innovate and make the industry “vertical,” Jackson said. Other industries, like chicken, pork or dairy, raise their animals in crates and have highly systemic operations.

After Jackson submitted his resume to his father and three uncles — who split ownership of the ranch — he shared his vision for the future. He wants to make it more accessible to the public and create a system where he can run the ranch with less overall effort, blending tradition and new techniques.

If he can pass the ranch on to his children and make the job a little easier for them and share the value of the industry with others, he will consider his time as a manager a success.

“We do need to change, but I think we can do it in a way that retains the flavor of why people love this,” he said. “I mean just this lunch. There’s something out here that is worth sharing.”

“I’m not cooking for $50 a plate,” David joked.

Future: 'We all have the same goal'

As Jackson watches his sons line up for horseback rides and his daughter pick flowers in the lush forestlands, he questions how some people could consider his operation bad for the planet.

“I cannot conceive a more healthy and environmentally sustainable way to produce the amount of protein that we produce on this land,” he said.

“When I come out here, the truth is evident to me that this is healthy,” he adds, gesturing to the forest. “We’re not doing it perfectly, but ranching has a positive impact that is motivated by personal survival. Why would we destroy the land that we depend on?”

Scientists have studied cattle’s impacts on the environment for years, and many environmentalists believe livestock should not be raised on the land at all.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency , 37% of methane emissions from human activity come from livestock and agricultural operations, with an estimate that one cow emits 154 to 264 pounds of methane gas per year. With about 1.5 billion cattle raised for meat production internationally, that amounts to about 231 billion pounds of methane annually.

But Jackson and researchers at Arizona State University believe grazing’s benefits to the soil can offset cows' emissions if done properly.

Jackson tries to move his herds frequently, allowing his cows to fertilize soils and eat grasses to promote healthy regrowth without overgrazing.

“I don’t just raise cattle, I raise grass,” he said. “I can’t raise grass without healthy microbes in the soil, so everything is tied together.”

This practice stems from a technique called adaptive multi-paddock grazing, developed by Alan Savory, a South African researcher who proposed grazing livestock similarly to how bison grazed the Great Plains.

Millions of bison used to roam the Great Plains, grazing an area with high intensity before moving on. Their hooves would stimulate the soil, promote seed growth and their feces would fertilize the land. As the land recovered and plants regrew, carbon dioxide would be sucked out of the atmosphere and into the soil.

Peter Byck, an ASU professor and filmmaker, has chronicled researchers' and ranchers’ work adapting this technique across the U.S. through his docuseries, “Roots So Deep.”

“Cows emit methane, methane is a strong greenhouse gas, there’s no question about that,” Byck said. “But if you look at a healthy system and how much that healthy system is drawing down, you’ve got yourself a greenhouse gas sink.”

While most of his work has focused on the southeast, he has seen ranchers in New Mexico adapt this technique successfully. Ranchers will allow their herds to graze intensively and move them between pastures frequently, once or even multiple times a day.

Researchers at the university are examining carbon dioxide equivalence, which compares how different greenhouse gasses like methane and nitrous oxide impact global warming by expressing them in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide that would have the same effect.

They believe adaptive multi-paddock grazing can counteract methane emissions by capturing more carbon dioxide, balancing the overall climate impact.

Jackson’s management plan derives from this technique. He tries to preserve the soil and grasses on his land and believes raising cattle is the best use of the land that is most beneficial to people and the environment.

“If you remove the cattle, the only other outcome for that land is development,” he said. “You’re never going to get a sweet potato out here without massive inputs of energy.”

“I think the bottom line is there is a lot of miscommunication and oversimplification, and that’s frustrating,” Jackson said, reflecting on how the media and environmentalists discuss and criticize ranchers. “It’s frustrating that there are even lines drawn because I think we all have the same goal.”

Regardless of pushback, Jackson hopes to continue exploring techniques to improve productivity, benefit the environment and provide important nutrients for Americans who rely on the cattle industry.

While he is too humble to talk about his accomplishments at the picnic, his father is happy to.

“He has an incredible vision for what can be done with our operation,” David said. “He’s learning the science of it and applying it. How you move cattle, there’s science to it.”

“He works too hard and so he stresses a little too much about stuff he can’t control,” he added. “But his energy and drive, together with his vision, is just mesmerizing to watch.”

The Browns may not be the quintessentially Western ranchers on paper, but they are the backbone of the cattle industry in Arizona, hanging on to tradition and welcoming new techniques to continue their legacy.

At the picnic, the food is laid out and beef is cooked. With his daughter Winona perched on his shoulders, Jackson leads his family in prayer, and then they sit down to eat.

Hayleigh Evans covers weather issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to .

Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

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