• Thank you to our friends, partners and neighbors who have supported the Ranney Ranch over the past 52 years. We are grateful to pass our beautiful ranch on to a wonderful family who care deeply about the land and are committed to carrying on the rangeland practices that have worked so well here in our high mesa country. Happy Trails!

  • “Carbon Cowboys”

    Melvin Johnson, Ranney Ranch manager, makes Fox News online as one of our country’s “Carbon Cowboys”.

  • Final Reflection from Mitchell Robert

    November 10, 2019 My time at Ranney Ranch has been a wild, gritty, challenging and beautiful roller-coaster ride. I have experienced high highs feeling capable and confident. Having moments of complete (or at least almost complete) clarity, using the accumulation of all my learned…

  • Ranney Ranch Erosion Control Workshop

    Workshop participants will build erosion control structures through hands-on instruction and learn how to read the landscape to better understand surface water flow and the erosion process from NRCS and Quivira Coalition staff members.

  • E28: Nancy Ranney on Regenerative Grazing in New Mexico

    Recently Nancy was interviewed by Kelly Brownell, Head of the World Food Policy Center at Duke University

  • LOOKING FORWARD TO APPRENTICING

    “In just over a month I will have the privilege of beginning to work with Nancy and Melvin at Ranney Ranch. My journey in agriculture has been a winding one. Beginning in the rolling hills of central Washington to the green and wet Pacific…

  • A Writer’s Summer at the Ranney Ranch

    By Sean McCoy Summer 2018 writer-in-residence at Ranney Ranch Tarantulas are crossing the highway. The grass has begun to cure. I’m sitting on the porch of the Sowell House, as I often have this summer, watching the clouds above the mesa and wishing to…

  • Apprenticing on the Ranney Ranch

    Curious to know what apprenticing on the Ranney Ranch is like? Here’s a word from our current apprentice, Ben Vanderhoof, about his experience so far. When I was asked by Nancy Ranney to write a brief account of my experience on the ranch as…

  • Audubon Certified

    Ranney Ranch and Audubon partner to protect birds by restoring grasslands.

    The Audubon mark certifies the beef was grazed on Audubon certified bird-friendly land.

  • Finding Home on the Range

    “So, what are your plans for after graduation?” “What you want to do with your life?” Ah, the questions every soon-to-be college graduate dreads. And of course, the ones asked by every well-meaning grandparent, aunt, professor, and friend. If you’d asked me one of…

  • 2015 Artist in Residence

    This summer we have been fortunate to host John Beerman, an accomplished artist from North Carolina, at the old Sowell House, the original stone headquarters of the ranch built in 1926. John’s paintings of the ranch will be exhibited at the LewAllen Gallery in…

  • 2015 Annual Round Up

    With so much rain and an abundance of grass, heifers and calves are fat and happy this year at Ranney Ranch. On July 9 and 10, a dedicated team of friends and family gathered to vaccinate and brand. Clouds threatened, but managed to provide perfect…

  • On Cows and Carbon

    How possibly can our management of semi-arid ranch land have the potential for ameliorating large scale climate impacts? Very recently, streams of evidence are beginning to trickle from the scientific community supporting the idea that healthy soil may be the simplest, most cost effective method for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.

  • May 29th Marketing and Grazing Practices to Survive Drought

    An HMI Open Gate Workshop @ the Ranch Our Ranney Ranch Day is part of HMI’s Open Gate Learning Series.Open Gates are peer-to-peer action-based learning days with short presentations and small group exercises geared for participants to share discoveries and management techniques with guidance from…

  • Water Harvesting

    We contracted with Steve Carson of Rangeland Hands to redesign our ranch roads with the goal of capturing runoff and throwing it back onto our pastures.

  • Putting Grasslands to Work

    This past summer, I had the good fortune (and the accumulated American Airline miles) to attend the Savory Institute annual conference in London.