Improving Sustainability of Cow-Calf Operations with Natural Forage Systems

Our SARE project has had significant impacts on beef production, beef cow systems research, and extension education in Nebraska and in many states that have significant numbers of beef cows. Our project has brought attention to and application of production practices that extend grazing, reduce use of purchased and harvested feeds, reduce production costs and improve returns in beef production systems. It has also focused attention on including prices or the marketing of the final product as a direct component of the overall analysis. From the concept of matching nutrient needs of the cow with nutrients in grazed forages we initiated research using lactation (i.e., calving and weaning date) of the calf as a primary means to match the cow to forage. Previously most research and production systems had attempted to match the forage to the cow with various practices such as seeding range or pasture land to non-native grasses to meet a nutrient void of cattle in native range plants. A summary of impacts of our system work follows. Extension education impacts: Reports of our research and concepts have been presented at meetings and symposia in Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, Missouri, Montana, Iowa, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Ohio, Oregon, Mexico, and Canada. These presentations have been to multi-state producer symposia, National Cattlemen Beef Association cattlemen's college, state Beef Cattle Association meetings and seminars, IRM schools, university field days, annual meetings of cattle breed associations, national and state veterinary association meetings, classes sponsored within states for certification credits for veterinarians, lectures and seminars for university beef system classes, county and area extension meetings, and training for professionals in industries allied to beef production (especially feed manufacturing). This work resulted in two field days at the University of Nebraska Gudmundsen Sandhills (GSL) in 1996 and 1999 with attendance of over 225 from multiple states at each field day. The systems research has also resulted in numerous visits to GSL by beef producers, extension educators, allied industry and scientists and students from across the United States and several foreign countries. We estimate that this work has been presented to over 4,000 people in each of the last five years. The Nebraska Ranch Practicum, a seven-day school for producers, was a direct spin-off of the work from this team. While the interest in our work is noteworthy, the greatest impacts may be on the beef industry itself. It is our assessment that we have brought a focus on grazing and management systems and practices across the United States that reduce production costs, increase returns, improve sustainability, bring greater attention to the importance of holistic management, and inventorying resources. Production impacts: It is difficult to estimate the full impacts of our research and extension programming on the beef industry. We have had contact with or are aware of a number of ranches (several with inventories of more than 5,000 cows) that have adopted our concepts and technology, in Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, Utah, and Nevada. Those adopting our concepts have significantly changed the length of grazing time during the year, calving dates, weaning dates, management of yearling cattle and meadow management. Economic analyses of our production systems show potential increase in net returns of $50 to $90 per cow annually. If these practices were applied to 250,000 cows (which is only 50% of the cows in the Sandhills alone) the impact on the industry would be $12.5 million annually. A significant fact in adopting our concepts to cattle production systems is that capital outlays are generally not required nor is risk increased. In addition the use of fossil fuels would be greatly reduced since hay harvesting and feeding activities are greatly reduced. Research impacts: The effort of our interdisciplinary team has resulted in numerous theses and dissertations, journal articles, symposia and extension reports. Two papers have been published on methodology for measuring forage intake in grazing cattle. Protein and digestibility of Sandhills range and subirrigated meadow have been established for models representing the full calendar year and have been published. This data set includes Degraded Intake Protein (DIP) and Undegraded Intake Protein (UIP) needed for application of the 1996 NRC Nutrient Requirements for Beef Cattle. The DIP and UIP are the most complete set of data published on grazed forages of which we are aware. The systems research has lead to research on fundamental questions for segments of the systems. Examples of these segmented research are establishment of DIP requirements for cows gazing dormant forages, forage intake of cows and calves at various times of the year and production cycle, and finding the first limiting nutrients for cows, calves and yearling cattle at various times of the year and production cycle. Establishing first limiting nutrients has allowed us to solve basic nutrition problems within complex production systems. Prior to our publication, "Extended grazing systems for improving economic returns from Nebraska Sandhills cow/calf operations," the term "Extended Grazing" was not apparent in research or extension publications. Since that time "Extended Grazing" has appeared in scientific publications and numerous extension and production symposia. Our research on matching nutrient requirements of the cow with nutrients in grazed forages has resulted in initiation of research on calving date in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Missouri, and Utah. It is our assessment that our interdisciplinary systems research is on the cutting edge of range beef systems research in the United States and beyond. Education Impacts: Seven students have received degrees partially based on their research efforts led by one or more of the team members. Six other students are in various stages of completing their graduate degrees. All of the research conducted by these students applies directly to the work of this team. The theses and dissertations as well as the areas of concentration for those students still actively pursuing degrees are shown below. Completed Theses and Dissertations Villalobos, G. 1993. Integration of complementary forage with native range for efficient beef production in the Sandhills of Nebraska. PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Animal Science, UNL. Hollingsworth-Jenkins, K. J. 1994. Escape protein, rumen degradable protein, or energy as the first limiting nutrient of nursing calves grazing Sandhills range. PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Animal Science, UNL. Lamb, J. B. 1996. Plant maturity effects on intake, digestibility, and rumen kinetics of leaf and stem fractions of Sandhills grasses in beef steers. PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Animal Science, UNL. Downs, D. 1997. Diet composition of Sandhills winter range and compensatory growth of yearling steers during summer grazing. M.S. Thesis, Dept. of Animal Science, UNL. Lardy, G. P. 1997. Protein supplementation of calves and cows grazing Sandhills range and subirrigated meadow. PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Animal Science, UNL. Sandberg, R. E. 1998. Efficacy of N-alkanes as markers to predict forage digestibility. M.S. Thesis, Dept. of Animal Science, UNL. Horney, M.. 1999. Spring grazing: A management alternative for Sandhills wet meadows. PhD Dissertation, Dept. of Animal Science, UNL. Graduate Students in Various Phases of Completion Hoegemeyer, Chris. Nearing completion of M. S. in Agricultural Economics. Thesis topic is a Discrete Stochasitic Programming model for the summer/spring calving systems. Jordan, D. J. About to take qualifying exam for PhD in Animal Science. Dissertation topic compares the impacts of alternative wintering systems for March born calves on the breakeven costs for the steers in the feedlot. Hopkin, Amelia. In the middle of research and coursework for an M.S. in Animal Science. Her research is examining the production and economic impacts of alternative wintering/weaning treatments for the June born calves. Richardson, Devon. Nearing completion of M.S. in Agronomy. Her research is based on alternative grazing schemes for Sandhills subirrigated meadows. Patterson, Trey. About to take qualifying exams for PhD in Animal Science. Dissertation research examines heifer development under low input situations in the Sandhills and establishing database for Sandhills grasses. Wilson, Casey. Working on a PhD in Animal Science. M.S. research (being completed) examined the effects of summer grazing on feedlot performance of steer calves.

Economic Analysis

The results of the economic analysis indicate that a June (summer) calving system is a potential alternative to the traditional March (spring) calving system. Reduced costs of harvested forage (hay) fed to the lactating cow in the June system more than offset the higher purchased feed costs. Labor requirements for both feeding and calving, often a limiting factor in many production agriculture enterprises, are substantially lower in the June system compared to the March system. Average economic net returns indicate that sale of a calf at weaning is the most profitable strategy for either system. If a calf is grown past wean, average economic returns suggest the most profitable strategy is to retain ownership of a March-born calf through the feedlot and sell at slaughter or to retain ownership of a June-born calf grown as a yearling and sell at slaughter. Average financial net returns indicate selling at any stage of production for either the June or March system will generate a positive cash flow. As noted earlier, these results are based only on the average net returns and overlook other characteristics (variance and skewness) of the net returns distribution. Production agriculture is subject to several sources of economic risk: output price risk, yield risk, and input and cost risk. A simple comparison of average net returns from alternative production strategies overlooks risk. A comprehensive comparison of the net returns from the June and March calving systems should also include an evaluation of the economic risks involved. We first examined risk through a sensitivity analysis approach. However, rather than varying input costs or prices by a certain percentage, we grouped production data by worst and best performance, as measured by the ADG between wean and into the feedlot, and recalculated economic and financial net returns. This allows comparison of net returns for worst, best, and average performance (Table 7). The economic net returns indicate that a June-born steer calf sold at wean results in the highest profit even when comparing the worst performance of the June system to the best performance of the March system. Compared to selling a March-born steer calf at wean, selling a June-born steer calf at wean generates $62 to $72 in a best performance year and $70 to $77 returns in a worst performance year higher. During a best performance year, post-wean economic returns are about $28 higher at slaughter for a June-born yearling steer compared to a feedlot-finished March-born calf fed. Conversely, in a worst performance year, the feedlot-finished March-born calf fed generates $23 to $28 higher return than the feedlot-finished June-born yearling. The financial net returns, with one exception, indicate that the June system generates positive cash flow higher than the March system at any production stage, regardless of performance. In a worst performance year, a feedlot-finished March-born calf fed steer generates $16 to $18 higher revenue over expenses than a feedlot-finished June-born calf fed steer. This sensitivity analysis, though useful for comparison of net returns under different expected performance levels, is still based on average net returns. Several methods for evaluating economic risk consider the variance in net returns. Mathematical programming methods (MOTAD, Target-MOTAD, safety first programming) and E-V (expected value-variance) analysis have commonly been used. However, these methods presume that the net returns distributions are normally distributed and that producers (decision makers) are risk averse. Generalized stochastic dominance (GSD) analysis, on the other hand, does not make a priori assumptions regarding the net returns distributions or the risk attitude of decision makers. [The mathematical discussion that follows is omitted, as the many special characters cannot be shown in this plain text version. Please see the full report.] GSD analysis was used in this research to identify economically risk efficient cow/calf production strategy or strategies from among the March and June calving systems. Initially, the average performance net returns were ranked. Then, the average, best, and worst performance net returns distributions were evaluated against each other. Sell strategies, corresponding to the stages of production, were coded as shown in Table 8 and ranked based on the number of alternative strategies dominated. The results of the GSD analysis of economic and financial net returns (average performance) are presented in Table 7 and Table 10, respectively. FSD, SSD, and SDRF analysis of the economic net returns identifies sale at wean of June-born calf feds from the meadow breeding treatment (strategy 7) as economically risk efficient. Sale at wean of a June-born calf fed from the range breeding treatment (strategy 4) was ranked second followed by sale at wean of a March-born calf fed (strategy 1). FSD and SSD analysis of the financial net returns identifies six strategies as risk efficient. However, the more discriminating SDRF analysis identifies sale of a yearling calf from the meadow breeding treatment prior to grazing (strategy 13) as the risk efficient strategy for strongly risk preferring to slightly risk averse producers. Moderately risk averse producers would be indifferent between five alternatives, all in the June calving system. The risk efficient strategy for strongly risk averse producers is sell at slaughter of a June-born calf fed from the range breeding treatment (strategy 6). Regardless of the risk attitude, the SDRF analysis of the financial net returns ranks the three March calving system strategies very low and often least preferred. When economic and financial net returns under best, worst, and average performance conditions are evaluated together, a more comprehensive analysis is allowed (Tables 11 and 12). More specifically, the rankings indicate, for example, whether one strategy under worst performance conditions would be preferred to another strategy under best or average performance conditions. As might be expected, GSD analysis of the economic net returns identifies sale at wean of a June-born calf from the meadow breeding treatment, under best performance conditions (strategy 7B), as risk efficient regardless of the risk attitude. Interestingly, the same strategy, but under worst performance conditions (strategy 7W) is preferred to that under average performance conditions (strategy 7A). Sale at wean from both breeding treatments, even under worst performance conditions (strategies 7W and 4W) are ranked higher than sale at wean from the March system under best performance conditions. GSD analysis of the financial net returns identifies sale of June-born yearling calves prior to grazing, under best performance conditions (strategies 10B and 13B), as risk efficient for strongly risk preferring to slightly risk averse producers. None of the March system strategies, even under best performance conditions, are ranked among the top 15 strategies. The results of these analyses are important in that they suggest June calving is sustainable, both from an economic and cash flow standpoint. From the economic standpoint, the March system generates a positive return by selling the steer calf at wean or at slaughter after feedlot finishing, with the former being ranked higher when risk is considered. Sale at wean or of a feedlot-finished yearling from the June system returns an economic profit, with the former ranked higher when considering risk. Sale at all stages from both the March and June systems generates positive cash flow, however, the advantage is clearly with the June system. References for economic analysis Baidu-Forson, J. and A. Bationo. "An Economic Evaluation of a Long-Term Experiment on Phosphorus and Manure Amendments to Sandy Sahelian Soils: Using a Stochastic Dominance Model." Fertilizer Research 33(3, 1992):193-202. Bezuneh, M. "Application of Stochastic Dominance Criteria to Evaluate Bean Production Strategies in Central Province, Zambia." Agr. Econ. 7(3, 1992):289-99. Brown, W. J. and S. N. Kulshreshtha. "The Risk Efficiency of Dryland and Irrigated Crop Rotations in Saskatchewan." Jour. Amer. Soc. Of Farm Managers 55(1991):43-52. Bunn, D. W. Applied Decision Analysis. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1984. Carriker, G. L. "Factor-Input Demand Subject to Economic and Environmental Risk: Nitrogen Fertilizer in Kansas Dryland Corn Production." Rev. Agr. Econ. 17(January 1995):77-89. Harper, J. K., J. R. Williams, R. O. Burton, Jr., and K. W. Kelley. "Effect of Risk Preferences on Incorporation of Double-Crop Soybeans into Traditional Rotations." Rev. Agr. Econ. 13(July 1991):185-200. King, R. P. and L. J. Robison. "An Interval Approach to Measuring Decision Maker Preferences." Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 63(August 1981):510-20. Kramer, R. A. and R. D. Pope. "Participation in Farm Commodity Programs: A Stochastic Dominance Analysis." Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 63(February 1981):119-128. Larson, J. A., R. K. Roberts, D. D.Tyler, B. N. Duck, and S. P. Slinsky. "Stochastic Dominance Analysis of Winter Cover Crop and Nitrogen Fertilizer Systems for No-Tillage Corn." J. Soil and Water Conserv. 53(3, 1998):285-88. Love, R. O. and L. J. Robison. "An Empirical Analysis of the Intertemporal Stability of Risk Preference." South. J. Agr. Econ. 16(July 1984):159-65. Maynard, L. J., J. K. Harper, and L. D. Hoffman. "Impact of Risk Preferences on Crop Rotation Choice." Agr. and Res. Econ. Rev. 26(April 1997):106-14. McCarl, B. A. "Generalized Stochastic Dominance: An Empirical Examination." South. J. Agr. Econ. 22(December 1990):49-55. McCarl, B. A. and D. A. Bessler. "Estimating an Upper Bound on the Pratt Risk Aversion Coefficient when the Utility Function is Unknown." Austral. J. Agr. Econ. 33(April 1989):56-63. Musser, W. N., B. V. Tew, and J. E. Epperson. "An Economic Examination of an Integrated Pest Management Production system with a Contrast Between E-V and Stochastic Dominance Analysis." South. J. Agr. Econ. 13(July 1981):119-24. Raskin R. and M. J. Cochran. "Interpretations and Transformations of Scale for the Pratt-Arrow Absolute Risk Aversion Coefficient: Implications for Generalized Stochastic Dominance." West. J. Agr. Econ. 11(December 1986):204-10. Robison, L. J and P. J. Barry. The Competitive Firm's Response to Risk. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987. Williams, J. R., G. L. Carriker, G. A. Barnaby, and J. K. Harper. "Crop Insurance and Disaster Assistance Designs for Wheat and Grain Sorghum." Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 75(May 1993):435-447. Zacharias, T. P. and A. H. Grube. "An Economic Evaluation of Weed Control Methods Used in Combination with Crop Rotation: A Stochastic Dominance Approach." N. Cent. J. Agr. Econ. 6(January 1984):113-20.

Farmer Adoption

Reports of our project have been presented in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Wyoming, Utah, Mexico, and Canada. These presentations have been to multi-state producer symposia, National Cattlemen Beef Association cattlemen's college, state Beef Cattle Association meetings and seminars, IRM schools, university field days, annual meetings of cattle breed associations, national and state veterinary association meetings, classes sponsored within states for certification credits for veterinarians, lectures and seminars for university beef system classes, county and area extension meetings, and training for professionals in industries allied to beef production (especially feed manufacturing). This work resulted in two field days at the University of Nebraska Gudmundsen Sandhills (GSL) field days in 1996 and 1999 with attendance of over 225 from multiple states at each field day. We estimate that this work has been presented to over 4,000 people in each of the last five years. While the interest in our work is noteworthy, the greatest impacts may be on the beef industry itself. It is our assessment that we have brought a focus on grazing and management systems and practices across the United States that reduce production costs, increase returns, improve sustainability, bring greater attention to the importance of holistic management, and inventorying resources. We estimate that as many as 250,000 head of cattle may have impacted to date by our project. If a $75/calf increase in returns were realized for each calf impacted, the beef cattle industry would realize an increase in returns of over $18 million annually. Involvement of Other Audiences See previous section. Involvement of other audiences has been primarily veterinarians and allied industry (primarily feed manufactures). Veterinarians have attended our outreach programs and have sought our information. Feed manufactures have consulted with us on formulation of supplements appropriate for extended grazing systems.