The Beel brothers are third-generation stewards of their family ranch located on the Brown and Cherry County line in the Nebraska Sandhills. Started in 1937 by Henry O. Beel, ranch records reveal conservation practices were an early concern: soil and water planning, water placement, rotational grazing, and planting of tree groves began in the 1940s. Today conservation and range management continue to play a central role at the Beel Ranch.

Over the past decade, high commodities prices have encouraged and accelerated the conversion of our native grasslands to cultivated cropland. According to the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), between 2011 and 2012, nearly 400,000 acres of grassland and other non-cropland across the United States were plowed up or otherwise converted to cropland.