Legal Provisions for Cooperative Grazing Associations in the Northern Great Plains States

Excerpts from the report: A cooperative grazing association has been defined as a nonprofit cooperative corporation organized for the conservation of forage resources within a designated area and for the joint use of these resources by its members. A grazing association is a specialized type of tenure improvement association. Because a grazing association operates within a definite area, it is frequently referred to as a "grazing district” in both common parlance and the statutes of some states, but in this report, the term "grazing association", is used to refer to the business organization, and the term "grazing district" is used to refer to the area within which an association operates. There is considerable variation among the states in the legal provisions under which grazing associations may be formed, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota have adopted special laws for the organization of such associations. One grazing association in Colorado and three in Wyoming have been incorporated under general laws which provide for organization of nonprofit corporations and an attempt is being made at the present writing to organize such an association in Kansas. There are no grazing associations in Nebraska, but it is believed that it would be legally possible to organize them under the 1941 enabling act for cooperative tenure improvement associations. The purpose of this report is to describe the salient features of the laws under which grazing associations can be organized in each of the states in this region.