A ranch is a large farm for raising cows, horses, sheep or other livestock. The word ranch is from the Spanish word "rancho". It is used in American and Canadian English.
A ranch may be on private or public land. The desert areas of the western United States have many ranches, because there is much land that is not very good for crops. There are also many in desert areas of Australia, where they are called stations. Someone who takes care of the livestock may be called a stockman or cowboy.
In contrast to traditional forms of mobile long-distance grazing, the ranchers' homes are usually located within the grazing area. Other differences include the more complex management of pastures (sometimes supplemental seeding of forage grasses, well digging, human-planned grazing rotations, fencing, and the like). In addition, stationary livestock systems often use only one animal species or breed, while mobile systems are based on two or more species. Seasonally used housing is rarely present in either form.
Another - essential - difference is the market economy orientation of the ranches: subsistence production for one's own needs - as is still often the case with nomadic animal husbandry - only rarely occurs as an additional benefit (example: complex transhumance in central Utah or southern Idaho).
Ranching was developed by European settlers in the arid regions of America and Australia, and from there was transferred to other parts of the world (for example South Africa). The roots probably lie in summer-dry Iberia, where in the course of the Reconquista deserted, semi-arid areas were used by large herds of merino sheep and cattle under the supervision of mounted shepherds. This agricultural system found its way into the deserted grasslands of the Americas with the Spanish-Portuguese conquest in the 16th century: the pampas, the Gran Chaco, the sertãos of Brazil, the llanos of Venezuela, the drylands of northern Mexico, Texas' and California. The fencing of vast areas with barbed wire was deliberately promoted in the late 19th century to protect the herds from predators and to manage them better, but also to mark and enforce the ranchers' claims to ownership over indigenous peoples (for example, Prairie Indians in the USA, San in Southwest Africa or Aborigines in Australia). Until the beginning of the 20th century, the orientation towards the world market increased, but decreased thereafter: In South America in favor of supplying the rapidly growing cities in the individual states, and in the industrialized countries primarily through the political protection of national agriculture from foreign competition (agricultural protectionism).
