A number of financial handicaps faced by the range livestock producer have tended to prevent the most effective balance between capital investments, production costs, breeding herds, credit facilities, and marketing opportunities. Since a seriously unbalanced relationship adversely affects the opportunity for profit, and therefore tends to affect the management of the range, an understanding of the handicaps is needed. The livestock producer has not been entirety a free agent to manipulate at will the elements that enter into production costs, nor has he been able to adjust these with the constant fluctuations in the market price of his ultimate salable product. This section will attempt to explain the ways in which financial factors largely beyond the control of the producer have influenced business management and range practice, tending toward range depletion.
