Growing crops to feed animals requires a lot more land, energy and fertilizer than growing them to feed people, he says: 70% of the land that was once Amazon rain forest is dedicated to grazing.

FORBES: Technology

The National Forest Service, from which many ranchers rent grazing land, may require them to graze fewer cattle, in order to encourage native grasses and wildlife.

ECONOMIST: Can the rules be bent just enough to keep them alive?

Now, at 43, he and his wife, Julie , have bought two ranches in southwest Montana-the 1, 800-acre Beaverhead Ranch, with 5 miles of the Beaverhead River running through it, and the 2, 000-acre Big Hole Ranch, which rises 1, 500 feet from the Big Hole River up to grazing land for a herd of 400 elk that borders a national forest.

FORBES: Home On The Ranch