This year, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is celebrating its 50th anniversary as the US Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency. Since the agency's creation in 1953, research to solve problems associated with managing rangelands has been a part of ARS's primary mission.

Over the years, ARS has helped provide information to enhance livestock production, improve forages, sustain and restore rangelands, enhance wildlife habitat, and maintain soil, water, and air resources. Such research has helped transform range management from being chiefly an art to more of a science.

This special supplement provides a quick overview of what ARS has accomplished through the years to help rangeland managers, where ARS research is today, and where it may take us tomorrow.

Edward Knipling, Administrator, Agricultural Research Service