Environmental and Economic Implications of Long-Term Drought for Beef Grazing Systems.

Prolonged drought in the Southern Great Plains (SGP) has brought increased attention to the resilience of beef production systems in a context of increasing climate variability. In Texas alone, over $5 billion of agricultural sales were lost in 2011, largely due to losses in cattle and hay sales. This study focusses on the economics of alternative grazing systems designed to mitigate prolonged drought in the SGP.

Nutrient Tracking Tool (NTT), an integrated economic and environmental computer modeling system was used to evaluate the relative environmental and economic impacts of alternative grass, legume, and legume-grass pasture and hay combinations based primarily on existing native and introduced species in the SGP. NTT includes the Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender (APEX; Williams et al., 2000), which simulates forage growth and beef grazing. A linked Farm-level Economic Model (FEM; Osei et al., 2000) simulates farm costs and returns taking biophysical output from APEX as input. Alternative climate projections based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios were simulated to replicate drought and pluvial events that might impact beef grazing systems.

Results of model simulations indicate that projected climate risk will result in significant farm profit and agricultural production risk. Surface water resources are also likely to be impacted, with concomitant variability in flow and water pollution indicators. Effectiveness of conservation practices designed to enhance water quality is also subject to substantial variability. Beef producers may minimize the impact of climate risk by diversifying the forage mix of their operations based on the drought tolerance of various forage species.