Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
70% of the lifetime body weight of a beef animal destined for slaughter is
spent on forages and up to 100% of the life of beef breeding stock may be
spent on pastures or conserved forages [122]; however, the degree of grain
supplementation varies by region. The cow-calf sector represents a part of
the industry where animals spend a significant amount of time on pasture
and rangeland and generally require a minimal amount of purchased feed
prior to finishing. Therefore, this phase may already be similar to practices
of organic systems [123] and adjustments to adhere to organic standards
would be more focused on eliminating the use of implantable growth pro-
motants and antibiotics rather than feeding and housing.
When evaluating costs of production during the growing and fi nishing
phase, Fernandez and Woodward [124] found that the cost of gain was great-
er for calves in an organic system compared to calves fed in a non-organic
system ($1.89 vs. $ 1.36/kg gain, respectively). In non-organic beef fi nishing
systems the major determinant for cost of gain is the price of feed, and in this
study 79% of the cost of gain was due to feed costs for the organically raised
steers, where 73% of the cost of gain was due to feed for the non-organically
raised steers, with these costs heavily dependent on the price of organic and
non-organic corn. This study was conducted before the implementation of
the pasture rule and did not address profi t, which would include premiums
for the sale of organically raised cattle. However based on cost of gain, the
organic steers cost 39% more to fi nish than the non-organically raised steers,
when grain-fi nishing was used [124].
Increasing corn and soybean prices due to expanding demand of these
commodities for agrofuel production have impacted both non-organic and
organic ruminant production systems that depend on high-grain feeds to
maximize production. The price of organic feed corn increased from an
average of $5.22/bu in 2010 to $10.68/bu in 2011 [98] causing many live-
stock producers to explore alternative feed sources in an effort to become
less dependent on cereal grains. Moreover, increased input costs from en-
ergy-dense feeds like cereal grains caused some producers to evaluate the
economics of pasturing calves in stocker systems or forage fi nishing beef
in an effort to reduce cost of gain. Lewis et al. [125] evaluated the eco-
nomics of an intensive beef production system, where cattle were weaned
and immediately fi nished on a high-grain diet compared with an extensive
system where calves were weaned, wintered on crop residues, grazed on
