Barriers to Management Intensive Grazing by Southern Dairy Farmers

Abstract Interest in Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) [a situation where grazing animals are moved to a fresh pasture every few days in order to have access to adequate forage] practices by farmers have increased steadily over the years. Many research publications on grazing advocate the financial and environmental benefits of grazing. Understanding the challenges of MIG can be an important piece of information for a dairy farmer. A survey was conducted to determine how farmers in the southeastern region perceive the barriers to the adoption of MIG. A greater percentage of MIG southeastern farmers were satisfied or very satisfied with their farm profit level compared to other practices. However, the amount of work to start pasture management, and the lack of on-farm technical assistance were barriers for many MIG operations. Keywords: Management Intensive Grazing, Grazing Systems, Southern Dairy Farmers, Dairy Farmer

Survivability and Growth of Grain Farms in North Central and Northeast South Dakota

South Dakota\u27s economy is very dependent on agriculture. However, the farm population and number of farms continue to decline in South Dakota. The distribution of farm size (in acres) has also changed overtime in South Dakota. Since 1969, increasing average farm size in South Dakota has been accompanied by an increased number of large farms and ranches (2000 acres or more) and substantial declines in the number of small to medium size farms (180 to 999 acres). Therefore, it is important to know if specific farms have greater profitability for survival. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the ability of the representative farm with various ownership levels, debt levels and with different lease agreements in the northeast and north central region of South Dakota. A representative farm was developed for five-county study region, from detailed farm data collected from numerous secondary sources. A total of 18 scenarios with different land ownership, different debt level and with cash/share agreements are studied in this research. The Farm Level Income and Policy Simulation Model were used to project future financial viability of the representative farm under different scenarios. The simulation results classified the overall financial position for all scenarios with 5% and 25% debt level are good, and scenarios with 45% debt level are marginal. The probability of farm firm survival is very high (99%) for all the 18 scenarios considered. However, the level of profitability varies across the scenarios. In this research a positive relationship between land ownership level and net worth is expressed and an inverse relationship is shown between the debt level and level of net farm income. The deterministic result shows, the ending financial situations are much improved for most of the scenarios in the simulation period of 2003 to 2011. In the 25% and 45% debt level scenarios, there is considerable reduction in the dollar value of total ending debt. The result also shows participation in federal commodity program stabilizes the cash receipts, and reduces the magnitude of business risk for farms. The simulation result shows, under the similar level of land owner ship and debt level the share lease agreements have more negative effect on net farm income, ending cash reserves, and net worth than in comparison with cash lease agreements. The ratios for cost to receipts and return to equity are also slightly lower for the share lease scenarios

Georgia Farmers’ Perceptions of Production Barrier in Organic Vegetable and Fruit Agriculture

Profit maximizing farm producers attempt to minimize risk in their business by utilizing available cost effective methods and information. This research attempts to identify production barriers to vegetable and fruit producers adopting organic methods of production and determine which of these barriers to organic production influence adoption most. The data for this study is from a 2014 state wide telephone survey of Georgia’s vegetable and fruit producers. Producers were segregated into five groups; those using 100 percent conventional methods, more conventional than organic, those using about 50 percent organic and 50 percent conventional, more organic than conventional, and 100 percent organic method. Results are based on logit analysis of producers’ perceptions of barriers, farm and socioeconomic characteristics. A number of factors including producers’ evaluation of production barriers are shown to influence adoption of organic production methods. Among perception factors and characteristics influencing adoption are organic certification costs, reluctance to adopt new production methods, lower organic yields, liability of organic producers is higher, labor costs, producer age, educational attainment, years of organic farming experience and farm size (measured as gross annual farm sales)