Author: Mark Wallace JennerPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Grazing
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
Annual grazing practices are highly variable among farms as constantly changing plant and animal interactions influence forage quality and utilization. Traditional continuous grazing practices utilize about 30 percent of the available forage while management-intensive grazing practices may utilize more than 70 percent. Data collected at the University of Missouri, Forage Systems Research Center (FSRC), Linneus, Missouri was used to conduct this study; it shows animal performance and stocking rates of different systems listed below. A ten year, capital budgeting model was developed to compare technical efficiency to economic efficiency of annual grazing systems. This assessment was based on three grazing technologies, named for the required management intensity level--High, Medium and Low. Also considered were three types of farming systems: Specialized, Diversified and Part-time. When merged, nine combinations of commercial cow-calf technologies and production levels were created. Once the FSRC baseline model was assessed, three technical parameters fixed by system design were relaxed--(1) removal of the steers from the system (NOSTR), (2) changing the ratio of winter to summer acreage (WSR), and (3) standardizing cow conception rates among systems. An assessment of the economic performance of the FSRC and NOSTR systems revealed the two systems to be comparable with respect to investment rates of return. When alternative management levels were compared (for both systems), returns were highest for Medium, High and Low levels, respectively. When system parameters were changed (WSR and conception rates) the result was a new economic ranking with the High management system ranked first, followed by Medium and Low level alternatives. However, the difference in economic returns between High and Medium levels is inconsequential, and one can conclude there was no difference in the economic performance of the two systems. Risk considerations (higher investment outlays associated with High management level) would result in ranking the Medium level as the best system from an economic perspective. Additional research is warranted using different animal prices and different system parameters--forage species, stocking rates, winter/summer acreage relationships, etc.