Overview

 

Strategies of Pasture Supplementation on Organic and Conventional Grazing Dairies: Assessment of Economic, Production and Environmental Outcomes

 

USDA-CSREES Organic Agricultural Research & Extension Initiative Grant project 48 month project, beginning in fall 2009

Project Overview:

Pending USDA National Organic Program (NOP) standards for dairy and livestock production require that 30% or more of dry matter intake are provided by pastures on organic farms during the grazing season. Managed pastures provide abundant, high quality forage, but also present challenges when balancing dairy rations. Organic farms may have additional economic, production and environmental challenges when growing or purchasing supplemental feeds for grazing dairy herds. Organic and conventional grazing dairy producers have expressed the need for more information on use of pastures in combination with feed supplement ingredients with respect to impacts on production, economics and environment.

This project is designed to investigate the impacts of pasture supplementation decisions made by Wisconsin organic and conventional grazing dairies on selected economic, production and environmental variables. It is anticipated that organic dairy producers, transitioning producers and even conventional producers will benefit from this project as it identifies the farm level factors that influence pasture supplementation decisions and feed resource management on dairy farms. Project results will be utilized to develop outreach materials and decision aids that will be useful to farmers, extension agents and other agricultural professionals as they assist organic, transition, beginner or grazing dairy producers with farm planning and risk management decisions.

Project results will benefit individual operations by optimizing farm profitability, production and environmental management and the Wisconsin dairy industry. Our results will also be of interest to organic and conventional dairy grazing producers across the Upper Midwest and Northeastern United States who operate under similar constraints.

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