Performing Department
Animal Science
Non Technical Summary
Cow/calf production is a vital component of the agricultural economies of states in the North Central Region (NCR). The states of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota alone have 8.2 million head of beef cows, which comprise over 25% of the nation's beef cows; adding the remaining states in the NCR brings that number to almost 11 million. This region accounts for 35% of the nation's beef cow herd (USDA, 2018). However, the number of cows in the region has steadily declined in the region. We hypothesize that the reduction in cows in the NCR is directly related to the loss of forage resources in the NCR due to land conversion to row crops such as corn and soybeans.Production of ethanol from corn, oil and oilseed co-products from soybeans, increased worldwide demand for wheat, and high crude oil prices caused a shift in land use in the NCR. During the time period of 1998 to 2008, the cropland acres in the states of ND, SD, NE and KS increased from 80.1 million to 82.8 million. This increase continued over the next decade as well with cropland acres rising to 85.0 million in 2018. Much of the increase in cropland ( 5 million acres) that occurred in the region over the past two decades resulted from the conversion of acres producing perennial forages. This has resulted in a shrinking of the summer grassland acres in the NCR, while croplands with grazable crop residues and the potential for double cropped fall and winter annual forages (cover crops) are increasing. This land conversion process does provide an opportunity for fall,winter, and early spring grazing, but reduces the amount of summer forages available.Concomitant with the decrease in acres of perennial forages is a decrease in the size of the US beef cow herd. Using the same time period of 1998-2018, the US cow herd declined from 42.8 million to 31.2 million, a loss of 11.6 million head (NASS, 2018). During the same period, beef cows in the 12 states of the NCR declined from 14.1 million to 10.8 million (NASS, 2018). A large proportion of the decline (3 million head; 29%) of US beef cows numbers during the last two decades were lost in the NCR. The decrease in supply of perennial acres has also resulted in doubling of the rental rates for range and pastureland in the NCR. Rental rates per animal unit month increased 35% from 1998 to 2008 and an additional 45% from 2008 to 2017 in the states of ND, SD, NE and KS (NASS, 2018). This has resulted in significant increases in annual cow carrying costs. Thus to support or enhance the size of the region's cattle herd greater production and/or greater harvest efficiency of perennial grazinglands and/or alternative systems that do not rely on summer perennial forages are needed.We propose to: investigate strategies to optimize the sustainable use of the remaining range and pastureland, expand the use of alternative forages such as crop residues, annual forages and double cropped annual forages, and develop integrated crop-cattle systems that optimize resource use and net returns.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
25%
Applied
50%
Developmental
25%
Goals / Objectives
Enhance productivity and efficient use of pasture, rangeland, and other forage resources
Create and evaluate opportunities to incorporate forage production within cropping systems
Assess economic performance, resiliency, and adaptability of the systems and management practices explored
Improve stakeholder understanding of the systems and management practices evaluated
Project Methods
Economic analysis of different production systems is best done using whole farm financial analysis when case farm information is available. However, such information is costly to collect and assimilate into viable scenarios. As data is collected from trial work conducted for objectives 1, 2, and 3, enterprise budgets will be used to evaluate the profitability of individual production enterprises such as a cow-calf enterprise or a forage crop enterprise under differing scenarios. These enterprise budgets can then be used to populate case farm scenarios for whole farm financial analysis as the project progresses.Partial budget analysis will be the primary tool used throughout this project to analyze potential changes to management practices. For example, an experiment will be conducted to evaluate nursing calf management in the confined production cow system. Weaning management systems will be evaluated to determine economic feasibility along with performance data. Comparison of the weaning management systems is best done in a partial budget analysis. In a partial budget analysis, a proposed change (experimental treatment) is compared to a base case (control treatment) by subtracting the negative economic effects (added costs and decreased revenue) from the positive economic effects (increased revenue and reduced costs) associated with change compared to the base case. This provides a nimble economic comparison of management practices that can easily be combined with stochastic tools for sensitivity analysis to test the robustness of the economic results. Throughout the project, partial budgets and enterprise budgets will be utilized to analyze proposed system changes for economic performance and resiliency. These will serve as building blocks toward the construction of whole farm system analyses as the project progresses.The magnitude of the economic benefits of integrated crop-livestock systems depend upon the adaptability of management strategies at the farm level to varying production and market conditions within and between years (Hendrickson et al., 2008). Risk scenario models will be developed to analyze the resilience the various production systems have to future uncertainties using readily available stochastic analysis tools.We plan to disseminate information and share research findings with scientists, extension educators, natural resource agency personnel, and producers. We will accomplish this by:Presenting research findings at regional and national scientific conferencesPublishing research summaries in university research reports (Iowa State University Animal Industry Report).Publishing research findings in refereed-reviewed journals, not limited to Journal of Animal Science, Professional Animal Scientist, Crop Science, Crop, Forage and Turfgrass Management, Rangeland Ecology and Management, and/or Agronomy Journal.Creating new and revising existing extension publicationsDisseminating information using extension websites (Iowabeefcenter.org), newsletters (ISU Growing Beef), and social media (Twitter and Facebook).Hosting and participating in educational field days, workshops and conferences