Humboldt County Nevada’s Kris Stewart has been named Outstanding Agriculturist of 2024 by the University of Nevada Reno’s Department of Agriculture, Veterinary, and Rangeland Sciences (AVRS) in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology, and Natural Resources.
She is the manager of the Ninety-Six Ranch.
The Paradise Valley, rancher along with her late husband Fred and daughter Patrice were vocal advocates for practical rangeland reform following the 2018 Martin fire which devastated their now 160-year-old ranching operation along with other area ranches and burned nearly 440,000 acres in total.
The Martin fire remains the largest in Nevada history and one of the largest in US history. It destroyed ranching resources, grazing land, wildlife habitat and killed or displaced countless animals, domestic and wild.
Stewart contended that lack of proper management on the part of the US Department of Interior and their capitulation to radical anti-livestock grazing environmental groups led to conditions that allowed what should have been an unremarkable local wildfire event; to morph into Nevada’s single largest, due to the unsafe and unprecedented levels of unused fuels allowed to collect and then burn rangeland that encompassed federal grazing permits including the family’s own.
The devastation of the Martin fire led Mrs. Stewart to develop and present an eight-point reform plan to Agency (BLM and USFS), congressional leadership and to the Trump White House during a nine-day self-funded family lobbying trip to Washington DC in September 2018.
In a bi-partisan show of support for Northern Nevada’s ranching community and the Stewart family, access to Agency directors and meetings with members of congress were arranged by three members of Nevada’s congressional delegation led by Congressman Mark Amodei, then Senator Dean Heller, and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto.
Elko County Commissioner and family friend Demar Dahl also arranged critical access to key staff inside the Trump White House. The advocacy effort by Nevada lawmakers and the Stewart family was rewarded by Mrs. Stewart being phoned directly by then President Donald Trump, and after detailed conversation and review, his championing of Executive Order 13855 - Promoting Active Management of America’s Forests, Rangelands, and Other Federal Lands to Improve Conditions and Reduce Wildfire Risk.
Stewart has made clear that her efforts; while perhaps pivotal in getting an administration to finally act, existed alongside a long-term effort on the part of many in the western ranching community to be heard on the issue of common-sense rangeland reform.
Today, nearly six years after the devastating Martin fire, livestock grazing is finally being broadly defended by government agencies and academia as a worthwhile and necessary tool for proactively controlling wildfire risks, maintaining and improving rangeland conditions and wildlife habitat.
The use of increased, targeted grazing to specifically reduce dangerous fuel loads is now an accepted practice, and available to grazing permitees without consultation above the local level.
Stewart unexpectedly lost her 59-year-old husband to cancer in 2019 and has since taken up fulltime primary management of the Ninety-Six Ranch.
The Ninety-Six, previously known as the William Stock Farming Company, was founded by her late husband’s great grandfather in 1864.
Celebrating 160 years in operation in 2024, it remains Nevada’s oldest ranch still in original family ownership and management.
Her daughter Patrice represents the fifth generation of their family on the ranch.
Under their management, Mrs. Stewart and her adult daughter Patrice have focused on improving natural water systems on the main ranch as well as rehabilitating fire-ravaged rangeland and watershed on their mountain properties and improving pastures and as associated natural ecosystems on each.
While they reluctantly sold their federal grazing permits and reduced the overall size of their cattle herd following the death of her husband, Stewart remains an outspoken advocate for common sense rangeland management and reform.
Stewart grew up in Granada Hills, Calif., and moved to Northern Nevada at the age of thirty following a career in the cable television industry. She credits her late father-in-law Leslie J Stewart and late husband Fred Stewart with giving her clear, common-sense ways to think about maintaining and improving ranch lands, conserving natural resources and using livestock grazing to manage wildfire risks, improve rangeland conditions and the security of wildlife habitat.
She further noted that the scholarship and practical example of numerous neighbors and friends including Tony Lesperance and Chuck Noble, as well as academics like Allan Savory have greatly enhanced her knowledge and perspectives on healthy rangeland, farming and livestock management.
Stewart acknowledged her parents and grandparents for giving her a healthy love of learning, the outdoors and natural world.
She credits her daughter Patrice for having the strength and resilience to come home to the ranch following college graduation and her father’s death and for continuing to work side by side with her each day for necessary motivation to keep ranching. She noted “feeling unworthy, but extremely honored and humbled” by the award and hoped that it would inspire other women, especially young women to choose careers in agriculture and range science.
The announcement was made by University of Nevada Reno’s Lesley Morris, PhD. on March 13. The award to Stewart will be presented at UNR’s Annual Spring Celebration and Awards Banquet, College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources on Friday, April 26 at Eldorado in Reno.