Wow! That’s amazing but I can’t afford to take paddocks out of production.

Date: 2009-02-26 | Category: Dairy

But can you afford not to?

Let’s look at what happens on a typical 120 ha dairy farm.
How much income do dairy farmers miss out on if they have a number of run-out pastures, but undertake only their normal pasture renewal over 5% of their farm area, rather than renewing 10% of their farm?

Here’s the powerful argument

If you sow an additional six hectares [5%] of new pasture every year the benefits compound: in year two, you sow another additional six hectares of new pasture, while gaining the benefit the extra six hectares of new grass sown in year one.

With each passing year, the potential income lost from not regrassing an extra 5% of the farm gets bigger and bigger.

This is what could have been earned: [we’ve factored in a 10% annual decline in the extra production off the new pasture]:

So you can see how the lost income keeps stacking up when renewal of poor paddocks is not undertaken.

This example omits two things.

1. It does not include the harder to quantify but no less real benefits of the additional ME produced by these paddocks.
2. Or the extra growth in year six, seven etc from the new pastures sown.

Less pasture renewal costs:

To renew an extra 6ha of pasture on a 120ha farm will mean the loss of 2 t DM/ha growth [through nine weeks out of grazing].
In total, 12t of dry matter is needed as replacement feed each year.

Less cost extra MS production:

Extra milksolids [MS] production has a cost.

Net Benefit

The net benefit is lower as you are analysing the farm at year five. There is still benefit from pasture renewal to come, especially from pasture sown in year 5. While pasture renewal itself is highly profitable, the benefit is likely to be the gain in capital value of the farm from its extra MS production.

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