Pasture-Forage

Range Record Keeping

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 05:59:53 GMT

By: Pat Johnson and Roger Gates, SDSU Extension

Livestock producers appreciate the value of livestock production records. Knowing which cows are most fertile, productive and therefore profitable, can inform decisions about culling and perhaps replacements for the breeding herd. Records are important for evaluating past decisions and planning for progress in their herd or flock. Pasture records are just as valuable. Records help evaluate your rangeland management each year and guide plans for the next grazing season. Evaluating pasture production status is challenging because landscape change is generally very slow; it can be nearly imperceptible to even the most careful observer. Knowing that grasslands are recovering or moving to a more productive condition requires a commitment to careful and repeated observation. Fortunately, most of those observations are easily made. The challenge is to make them faithfully, and record them so that changes that are difficult to detect over the short term can be clearly identified over a longer period of time.

So, what records should you keep?

Weather data: Since moisture is so critical to grazing land condition in arid and semi-arid regions, good records of precipitation are a necessity. Temperatures (daily high and low) are also useful in understanding plant growth and production. Late spring freezes delay and reduce growth; early fall frost ends growth and limits production; and cool summer temperatures can boost cool-season grass growth, but limit growth of warm-season grasses. Accessing historical records from a nearby weather station may provide guidance about “average” expectations for rainfall, but records taken on the ranch provide much better guidance about current year growing conditions and information to guide immediate grazing decisions. Precipitation and temperature can vary dramatically over very small distances; it is not at all unusual for a rainstorm that drenched your neighbor’s pastures to totally miss yours. Rain gauges and thermometers are inexpensive; many require little maintenance and record or store information for several days.

Grazing dates and stocking rates: When did you turn livestock onto each pasture? How long did they stay there? How many animals, which species (cattle, sheep), what class (cows, steers, ewes, etc.), and how much did they weigh? These records, especially when recorded over several years, can help explain changes in your pasture vegetation…and provide information to guide modifications. Without good, consistent records, however, you will find it difficult to remember exactly what happened in that pasture, so making changes to management will be much harder. Keeping these pasture records in a pocket notebook in the same manner as calving records can be a valuable habit.

Pasture production and utilization: Determining current year’s production and utilization doesn’t require a college degree or a lot of training. A couple of inexpensive tools and a little time will yield lots of useful information. A small hoop, a pair of clippers, a paper bag, and a small hanging scale are all you need to estimate production. Toss the hoop into the pasture, clip to the ground all the vegetation rooted in the hoop and put it in the bag, and then weigh the bag on the scale. Repeat a few more times in the pasture. We recommend a 0.96 ft2 hoop (SDSU Extension or NRCS can help you get or make one) and a scale that weighs in grams. Zero the scale for the empty bag weight; the weight of your clippings multiplied by 100 gives you lb/acre of wet forage if you use the 0.96 ft2 hoop. You can record the wet weight or translate it to dry weight (NRCS has some handy tables to make that easy); what is important is that you do it the same way every year at about the same time. Utilization records can be as simple as recording a comment about the level of use when stock are removed. More accurate estimates can be obtained by clipping inside and outside of grazing exclosures using your production hoop.

Monitoring: Ranchers are sometimes intimidated when pasture monitoring is introduced. Perhaps we “academics” have left the impression that you have to be a botanist to accomplish effective monitoring. That’s not necessary. One of the most effective monitoring techniques uses a camera. Choose one or two spots in your pasture that you think are representative of the condition of that pasture. Mark the spot (gps, fencepost, etc.) so you can find it each year. Take landscape photos from that spot; be sure to either date stamp the photo, or put a sign in the picture that tells where and when the photo was taken. It’s best if you can take your photos at about the same time each year. You can also take photos of a plot on the ground; make sure you can find the same spot again for future photos. Print the photos out and bring them with you the next year so that you can get the same view each time. You can look at the photos taken of the same landscape or plot over a series of years and detect changes that you might miss without the photographic record.

General impressions: Taking time to evaluate the effect of your grazing management on current and future rainfall effectiveness will provide the opportunity to continue what’s working and modify what’s not. In the same manner that it’s crucial to evaluate the condition of grazing animals (using tools like body condition score), it’s critical to “read the landscape,” and consider the condition of the vegetation and the soil. That assessment begins with careful observation: “are the most desirable plants vigorous and healthy?” (The same questions we’re asking ourselves about the calves). “Is the soil surface protected? Does litter decay indicate a healthy cycle?” The other important step is keeping a record of the observation, so that changes (hopefully indicating improvement) can be detected.

One reward of livestock production is the progress observed in some important traits such as yearling weight or pregnancy percentage. That progress is only evident if records are kept to document the changes. Similar reinforcement can be obtained from excellent rangeland management. Records to demonstrate landscape change are essential to detect the progress.

Climate Change Will Diminish Big Bluestem Growth

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 21:29:50 GMT

Climate change is expected to reduce the growth and stature of big bluestem, a dominant prairie grass, by up to 60% over the next 75 years. That’s the consensus of scientists from Kansas State University, Missouri Botanical Gardens and Southern Illinois University collaborating on a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Global Change Biology.

“Our results predict that climate change could greatly impact the tallgrass prairie as we currently know it, reducing forage for cattle in the drier parts of grasslands, place like Kansas,” said Loretta Johnson, professor of biology at Kansas State.

Big bluestem is a common grass in natural and restored prairies across the central Midwestern region that includes Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri and Iowa. Big bluestem is readily in found Kansas’ Flint Hills, a region of tallgrass prairie covering 9,936 square miles. The region’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture and cattle ranching.

Big bluestem – or Andropogon gerardii – can grow to four to six feet tall, but the researchers found that could be reduced by up to 60%. As a result, the form of big bluestem that grows in the central Midwest could come to resemble the form that currently inhabits eastern Colorado on the edge of the species’ range. The tall forms of big bluestem could shift to the Great Lakes region where the grass is currently less common.

The research team, in addition to Johnson, included Mary Knapp, associate agronomist and state climatologist; and Jacob Alsdurf, master’s student in biology. They found most of the change was because of alterations in rainfall that are expected to occur across the area, not because of increase temperatures.

The authors are concerned the dramatic reduction in size of big bluestem foretells a fundamental shift in the nature of the Midwestern grassland ecosystem.

“Because big bluestem is currently a dominant grass species of the Great Plains and makes up to 70 percent of the plant biomass in places, how the ecosystem works could be affected by predicted changes in growth of this species,” Johnson said.

“It was said in the past that the tallgrass prairies were so tall that a person riding a horse could literally get lost,” said Adam Smith, assistant scientist in global change at the Missouri Botanical Garden. “Big bluestem is an iconic species in this system owing in part to its stature. If smaller forms come to dominate it could cause a fundamental shift in the habitat and ecosystem services prairies provide, such as forage for cattle.”

Big bluestem grass can live several decades, so prairie restoration projects will need to consider the form of plants that would thrive at a site several decades into the future, researchers said.

The analysis also highlights the effects of climate change on common species that typically are not expected to be as vulnerable to anticipated climate change. Worldwide, 1 in 5 plants is already on the brink of extinction and climate change is only expected to add pressure on species struggling to survive. This study indicates that common species also may be vulnerable, researchers said.

BeefTalk: Beef Production is Sustainable Grass Production

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:03:16 GMT

By: Kris Ringwall, Beef Specialist, NDSU Extension Service

The Dickinson Research Extension Center has changed the bull turnout date to Aug. 1 and is not going back.

The center depends on the annual plant cycle, a cycle one cannot change, to grow and produce beef. Plants have a growing season set by forces cattle producers do not control. Producers must come to understand the plant world, develop a sustainable forage and plant system, and then integrate beef production into that system, not the other way around.

Too often, and to the detriment of the beef production system, the beef cow plan is laid out first, with the forage and plant production left to a later discussion. The beef-first, plants-later philosophy increases demand for hay and other processed feed. This is a commodity-based system that may very well lack system sustainability in the long run. This approach leads to watching markets: buy low, sell high.

This is not criticism but reflective of the majority of the models beef producers utilize for beef production systems. But is that the only model? No. Expandable, and, we hope, more sustainable systems need to be evaluated to assess current trends and needs.

In the future, all avenues for additional compensation need to be explored to enhance the economic viability for beef producers and the rural areas associated with beef production. This compensation results in synergistic crop production systems that integrate rotational cropping practices, high-residue management and annual forages. Attention to wildlife habitat enhancement could be used to diversify income and open doors to other value-added opportunities in concert with crop production.

The center, as part of North Dakota State University, takes seriously the need for sustainable beef systems. The center was mandated by the North Dakota Legislature more than 110 years ago to develop sustainable and integrated production strategies matching forage, plant and cattle conditions of western North Dakota and surrounding regions. The inclusion of forages into traditional cropping systems can provide the resources necessary for the development of integrated production strategies that increase sustainability and profitability.

A need exists to develop agro-ecosystems that optimize the balance between forage-based and grain-based crop/livestock systems reflective of the many individual ecosystems. These integrated systems must be synergistic to the native and agronomic plant communities, providing the base for future beef production.

Enhanced value for not only the niche commodities produced from forage-based systems but mainstream market outlets is key. Meat and high-protein crops can fulfill the general population’s protein requirements. A forage-based system, integrated with crop production, can meet this demand on the current land mass, converting nature’s forage into food for people. These thoughts, starting with bull turnout, changed how the center is addressing the future. Previous work set baseline production for high-residue cropping systems, grassland systems and livestock systems, but further definition, integration and refinement of these system efforts are critical.

Beef producers need to think outside the box, as does the center. We need to link the components of agricultural management systems with value-added opportunities, ensuring long-term sustainability of beef and cropping systems within the environment. An integrated agricultural system that truly entwines crop, beef and forage production as a working unit for betterment needs to be embraced.

And so, the bull turnout is Aug. 1 for a targeted calving start date of May 12. Grass turnout to cool-season grass is around May 1, with warm-season grasses ready for grazing around June 1. These cow-calf pairs convert very admirably to grazing crop residue, standing corn and cover crops as the perennial grasses start to prepare for winter.

The system works, but as with any change, time is spent getting it right. This will be the fifth year the center has turned bulls out on Aug. 1. Yes, that is too late for those who already have turned the bulls out; the traditional time is early June, two months ago.

But change is not for everybody, nor should it be. Beef production units must focus on change gradually. Spend time pondering but be open-minded. All things fail if one assumes the change will fail before it is implemented. So think hard, look hard and do not be afraid to visit the center.

The bulls will not have time to visit during the next month, but we will. We are always happy to visit, drive around and look at the cattle. The gates have been opened. The bull turnout is the most significant day of the year for the cattle producer. Everything, and I mean everything, must be in place.

May you find all your ear tags.

BeefTalk: Sustainable Soil and Integrated Beef Systems

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 21:29:25 GMT

By: Kris Ringwall, Beef Specialist, NDSU Extension Service

Forward thinking is important in beef production.

The focus in beef production is how to raise the best, most marketable, most tender, best-tasting beef and, in some cases, simply another beef cow or bull. At the end of the day, the word “production” needs to be replaced with the word “business.”

Good business concepts help with the dollars, but production methods still seem to take up a lot of the discussion. Among producers, beeves are being discussed and the outcome will be the best final product.

That is, until producers step from their pastures into the bigger picture. For some, beef production is fine in its present form with no need for alternative production models. Yet many producers are seeking production models that will stand the test of time.

Sustainability, to support, to withstand or to bear the forces applied, is critical within the developing models of beef production. Defining sustainability, however, seems to cycle in a pattern similar to the beef cattle cycle. Producers have work to be done, data to be collected and knowledge to grow when the beef industry speaks of sustainability.

Where is beef going to go? Perhaps a look at agriculture in general would be good.

Ideally, production agriculture will continue in its present role, but too often the words “sustainable” and “appeasement” are used side by side. The status quo is sufficient. However, given current data and trends, the sustainability of current systems is a subject of spirited discussion, particularly if community and population trends are added to the equation.

Expandable and, we hope, more sustainable systems need to be evaluated to assess current trends. In a word, that’s diversification. For the future, all avenues for additional revenue streams need to be explored to enhance the economic viability for beef producers and the rural areas associated with beef production.

This compensation may come from not only beef but also synergistic crop production. For example, small-grain production systems can integrate rotational cropping practices, high-residue management and annual forages (with attention to wildlife habitat enhancement) to diversify income while opening the door to other value-added opportunities for beef production in concert with crop production. Agriculture is no longer simply production agriculture; it involves increased urban and recreational components as well.

This multiple approach to a dynamic agriculture also provides opportunity for enhanced economic sustainability for rural producers. The Dickinson Research Extension Center, as part of North Dakota State University, takes seriously the need for sustainable beef systems in the world of agriculture. The center is striving to develop sustainable and integrated production strategies that match conditions of western North Dakota and surrounding regions.

The inclusion of forages into traditional cropping systems can provide the resources necessary for the development of integrated production strategies that increase sustainability and profitability. Forage-based cropping systems come closer to the native plant community present when homesteaders first arrived in this region.

A need exists to develop agro-ecosystems that optimize the balance between forage-based and grain-based crop/livestock systems reflective of the many individual ecosystems. These integrated systems must be synergistic to, or enhance, the native and agronomic plant communities, thus providing the base for future beef production.

In addition, marketing and obtaining a fair value for commodities produced from forage-based systems is key. Because the general population requires protein, a need met by meat and high-protein crops, meeting this demand is a unique opportunity that a forage-based system integrated with crop production can respond to in addition to current cropland use.

These thoughts are changing how the Dickinson Research Extension Center addresses the future. Previous work certainly has set baseline production for high-residue cropping systems, grassland systems and livestock systems. However, further definition, integration and refinement of these system efforts is critical. Beef production needs to think outside the box and the center also needs to do the same.

Challenging the limits of conventional thinking by linking the components of agricultural management systems with value-added opportunities ensuring long-term sustainability of beef and cropping systems within the environment is critical. In response, a new approach - a concept of integrated agricultural systems that truly entwine crop, beef and forage production as a working unit for the betterment of all - needs to be embraced,. That betterment rests with the soil all systems are based on: sustainable soil.

May you find all your ear tags.

Nebraska Rancher Shares his Passion for Shortgrass Prairie

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:02:05 GMT

Kimball, Neb. rancher shares his endless fascination at the lush diversity of the shortgrass ecosystem.
By: Steve Frederick, Scottsbluff Star-Herald

Although Shaun Evertson was born on the Great Plains hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean, he began his career in the Navy. As a search-and-rescue paramedic, he served for 14 years in some dangerous international operations.

“I spent a lot of time on aircraft carriers traveling around the world and having fun,” he told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald .

At 33, it was time to come home to Nebraska. He attended Chadron State College, studying history and biology and taking a few journalism classes. Instead of becoming a teacher, he returned to the EJE Ranch, where his father, Mick, a longtime agricultural agent, had already begun the process of transforming the former wheat farm into a cattle operation.

The ranch is named for the family patriarch, Evert J. Evertson, who came from Iowa with his brothers at the turn of the 20th century to become Kimball County pioneers in the farming, ranching and oil industries. Evert purchased the beginnings of the ranch from Emile Forsling, who came out on a train himself at age 14 to prove up his parents’ homestead claim, later becoming a county sheriff and liquor enforcer during the Prohibition era.

Evert raised a big family in a one-room house built from stacked stones collected from the farm fields. Over the decades, his descendants added parcels to the original home place.

“I happened to luck into having really smart ancestors who were good businessmen and farmers and ranchers,” Evertson said.

Today, the ranch includes 1,700 acres. Its amenities include three windmills, two other water wells and two oil wells, including the first in the region. Oil royalties still help pay the property taxes, he said.

“It’s not Jed Clampett money,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s not something you turn your nose up at.”

The ranch raises 100 beef cows that nurture the same number of calves, plus five herd bulls that wander the pastures regally, taking care of their only job.

In addition to ranching, Evertson worked for a time at the local Western Nebraska Observer newspaper and still writes a crop report and column for the Business Farmer. Now 55, he stays active in local community development groups.

But his passion is the shortgrass prairie.

While Mick and Shaun’s mother, Peggy, still live on the ranch, he lives in town, where he has access to high-speed Internet to sustain his website and blog, http://prairieadventure.blogspot.com/. The blog, Naval Air Cowman, abounds with photography and ruminations on prairie living and the ranch’s abundant wildlife. His PrairieAdventure Tours offers tours of the ranch, with a wagon-load of education and local lore dished out along the way. A visit to the ranch might include wildflower identification, bird watching or stargazing, depending on the time of year.

“It’s a little grandiose to call it an operation,” he said. “I show off the cattle and the shortgrass prairie system, the climate and how people make a living out here.”

He’ll tell you that there’s a lot more than grass on the prairie, a point he once made with a visiting Americorps team.

“One of my tricks is to get them to lie down and take a close look at a single square foot and count everything they see there,” he said. “At that scale, a whole different world opens up. I couldn’t get them to leave.”

He surveys the ranch annually and has counted at least 70 different grasses and forbs (non-grass forage). Its inventory of wildlife includes deer, antelope, coyotes, foxes, grouse, pheasants, rabbits, burrowing owls, snakes, lizards and turtles. He credits the abundance in part to the family’s decision to switch from farming to ranching, returning the plowed ground to a more natural state.

“It’s remarkably healthy and diverse now,” he said. “The place never made money as a farm. It always made a little money as a cattle operation. ... It’s been fascinating to have been around long enough to watch it revert.”

Another factor in the ranch’s success is the durability of the prairie, which has withstood eons of drought and deluge and the trample of a billion bison hooves since the end of the last Ice Age.

“If you could take away the roads and the fences and the wells and you could compare it with a picture from 13,000 years ago, you probably wouldn’t notice much difference at all,” he said. “It’s a very thin skin of topsoil that this ecosystem is anchored in — though it’s not as fragile as I once thought it was.”

While the soil isn’t well suited for repeated cropping, the ranch and its flora and fauna thrive on the sunshine and soil that’s the source of all abundance on the prairie, he said.

“We just take what nature gives us,” he said. “We’re grass farmers, and cattle are our harvesters.”

Cow Patties Meet Their Match Against the Beetles

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 21:28:02 GMT

Be mindful of the cow patties in the field, but be respectful of the beetles that gather around them. The beetles accelerate the patties’ decomposing process and cause nutrients to return to the soil sooner than would happen without them.

“Dung beetles may have a questionable reputation due to their name and their ‘home,’ but they are very beneficial in pasture ecosystems,” said Dirk Philipp, associate professor of forages at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

The process starts when the beetles feed on the patties by sucking out the moisture. If it’s a warm day, the dung beetles move in soon after the patch has been dropped on the field. If the beetles work quickly, a patch can decompose within hours.

Quick removal of the patties means cows will not need to avoid grazing close to patches, so there will be more forage growth even as nutrients are distributed across a larger area.

“It has been shown that if patties sit undisturbed, up to 80 percent of the nitrogen may be lost,” Philipp said. “If the dung beetles can do their work, most of it is recovered.”

The beetles also reduce the patties’ methane emissions by digging holes and little tunnels in the patties that aerate them and prevent the production of methane. The soil benefits from quicker incorporation of organic material and aeration that helps increase water infiltration rates.

The bad news is that dung beetle populations appear to be declining in recent years, Philipp said, possibly as a side effect from treatment of cattle for parasites with internal drugs. Helpful alternatives would be to use pesticides formulated in cattle’s ear tags, spray-on insecticides or treating the animals with the drugs during colder months when dung beetle populations are already low. Check with a veterinarian for the optimum treatment for your animals.

The beetles’ population level is also affected by grazing management that determines over how wide an area the patties are distributed. If the patties are concentrated in a small area, the convenience of an abundant food source will cause the population of beetles to be higher than would be present in patties spread across a larger area.

Philipp advised producers that they can find out whether dung beetles are present by checking the patties in their fields to determine if they have holes in them, if they appear to be shredded and if they’re disappearing quickly.

Source: Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service

Change in Critical Grasslands Diminishing Cattle Production

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:00:25 GMT

Half of the Earth’s land mass is made up of rangelands, which include grasslands and savannas, yet they are being transformed at an alarming rate. Woody plants, such as trees and shrubs are moving in and taking over, leading to a loss of critical habitat and causing a drastic change in the ability of ecosystems to produce food – specifically meat.

Researchers with Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences led an investigation that quantified this loss in both the United States and Argentina. The study’s results are published in today’s online issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“While the phenomenon of woody plant invasion has been occurring for decades, for the first time, we have quantified the losses in ecosystem services,” said Osvaldo Sala, Julie A. Wrigley Chair and Foundation Professor with ASU’s School of Life Sciences and School of Sustainability. “We found that an increase in tree and shrub cover of one percent leads to a two percent loss in livestock production.” And, woody-plant cover in North America increases at a rate between 0.5 and two percent per year.

In recent years, the U.S. government shelled out millions of dollars in an effort to stop the advance of trees and shrubs. The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service spent $127 million from 2005-2009 on herbicides and brush management, without a clear understanding of its economic benefit.

The research team used census data from the U.S. and Argentina to find out how much livestock exists within the majority of the countries’ rangelands. In both countries, the team studied swaths of rangeland roughly the size of Texas – approximately 160 million acres each. These lands support roughly 40 million heads of cattle.

Researchers also used remote sensors to calculate the production of grasses and shrubs. And, to account for the effects of different socioeconomic factors, researchers quantified the impact of tree cover on livestock production in two areas of the world that have similar environments, but different level of economic development.

Surprisingly, the presence of trees explained a larger fraction of livestock production in Argentina than in the United States.

“What’s happening in Argentina seems to be a much narrower utilization of rangelands,” added Sala. “The land there is mostly privately-owned and people who have ranches are producing predominantly meat to make a profit. But in the U.S., many people who own ranches don’t actually raise cattle. They are using the land for many other different purposes.”

While ranchers clearly depend on grasslands to support healthy livestock, ecosystems also provide a range of other services to humans. Stakeholders such as conservationists, farmers, builders, government entities and private landowners, depend on the land for a variety of reasons and each has different values and land use needs.

Why are trees and shrubs taking over grasslands?
There are several hypotheses as to why woody plant encroachment is happening. Fire reduction, grazing intensity, climate change, and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are some widely held beliefs as to the cause. However, Sala’s study is focused not on the cause, but rather on the cost of this change to people.

“For each piece of land, there are different people who have an interest in that land and they all have different values. And, they are all okay,” said Sala. “However, in order to negotiate how to use the land and to meet the needs of these different stakeholders, we need concrete information. We now know how much increase in tree cover is affecting the cattle ranchers.”

Sala and his colleagues hope their study will be used to inform discussions as policy makers and other stakeholders negotiate changes in land use. Researchers who took part in the study include Sala and Billie Turner II with ASU, José Anadón with City University of New York, and Elena Bennett with McGill University. National Academies Keck Futures Initiative and the U.S. National Science Foundation funded the study.

Source: Arizona State University

Efficient Cattle Operations Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 05:59:49 GMT

By: Kay Ledbetter, Texas A&M AgriLife

Direct linkages can be found between farm efficiency and carbon emissions and sequestration, according to “Factors Affecting Cow-Calf Herd Performance and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” a Texas A&M AgriLife Research paper recently published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Conducting the study were economist Dr. Seong Park, postdoctoral research associate Dr. Tong Wang and rangeland ecologist Dr. Richard Teague, all with AgriLife Research at Vernon; Stan Bevers, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist, Vernon; and Jaesung Cho, research fellow at the Korea Rural Economic Institute.

Funding for this study was provided by a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant.

This paper provides the first study on the relationship between cow-calf farm efficiency and environmental consequences as indicated by net greenhouse gas emission, Park said. Results suggest that for the cow-calf industry, pursuing farm efficiency aligns with environmental protection goals.

“We found that carbon emissions per unit of output decrease as farm efficiency increases,” Wang said. “Higher carbon sequestration occurs on farms that are more technically efficient as a result of more acres allocated to each breeding cow.”

The greatest net carbon sequestration was found for the two most technically efficient groups – those that managed the age of weaning, cost of pasture improvement and purchased feed, etc. the best. This indicates that pursuing technical efficiency will not compromise environmental quality, she said.

Park said the Rolling Plains’ beef cattle industry is inherently risky due to frequent drought conditions, volatile cattle prices and rising input costs.

In the face of these challenges, the Beef Cow-Calf Standardized Performance Analysis data have been developed. This analytical tool helps farmers and ranchers identify their strengths and weaknesses in production and financial performance, Bevers said.

Based on the Standardized Performance Analysis data, the study found the factors promoting higher herd productivity included machinery investment, pasture-quality improvement and protein supplements. In contrast, herd productivity is compromised by a longer breeding season, percentage of hired labor and deviation from the average annual rainfall.

“Interestingly, the more technically efficient farms tend to emit fewer greenhouse gas units per unit of output,” Park said. “For example, net greenhouse gas emissions are 6.12 and -8.7 pounds of carbon equivalent, respectively, for farms with technical efficiency below 0.8 and above 0.96.”

The focus of this paper is on output, or pounds weaned per breeding female, rather than profitability, he said.

“Future research could investigate whether the incentive to pursue financial profitability conflicts with environmental protection objectives,” Park said. “Future efforts could also extend the method to model the link between pursuing efficiency and environmental protection in other industries, such as cropping, or in different regions.”

Program Provides $35 Million to Help Conservation

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 05:59:49 GMT

The federal government is setting aside $35 million over three years to help landowners conserve wetlands and grasslands in the five-state Prairie Pothole Region.

The money is part of an incentive program built into the farm bill that President Obama signed into law earlier this month. It includes conservation grants, carbon credits and technical assistance.

Wildlife officials say the region of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Montana provides important breeding and nesting habitat for more than 60 percent of the nation’s migratory waterfowl.

Hundreds of thousands of native prairie acres in the region are lost to cropland conversion each year.

Agriculture Undersecretary Robert Bonnie says the program provides farmers, ranchers and conservation groups with options.

Source: Associated Press