In a tough farm economy, a Nebraska farmer shares the economics of grazing every acre

On his farm near the ghost town of Castleton, Kansas, C.J. Blew has his combine for sale.

Across the heartland, a global glut of grain has depressed commodity prices. And Blew, a fourth-generation farmer who came back to the family operation 22 years ago, hasn’t been making money on irrigated corn—or any other commodity, for that matter.

“I’ve seen red ink but not as bad as we’ve had the past couple years,” he said.

Yet, even in tough economic times, his cattle still had a profit margin. So, Blew did something unprecedented in these parts. He turned to cows to save the farm.

“This will be the first year in my lifetime that we’ve never harvested grain,” Blew said.

From cash crops to grazing

Blew, however, isn’t the only one with a similar mindset. On a cold day in early February, Blew and around 50 other southcentral Kansas producers gathered in an old lumberyard turned meeting space in the Reno County town of Pretty Prairie for pie and to hear how Nebraska farmer Jacob Miller had transitioned 600 acres of his family’s cropland to a cover crop system for grazing.

Miller, 28, of Culbertson, recalled how he returned to the farm in 2013—a bright-eyed university graduate with grand plans. Among them was to put his family’s crop fields back into production. Miller’s father couldn’t make money farming the land in southwestern Nebraska where annual rainfall is about 20 inches a year. During the 2002 drought, his father quit planting cash crops and started grazing cattle on sorghum during the winter.

“By God, I was going to be a farmer and needed to have a combine,” Miller recalled. “So, I went and bought a combine and grew wheat, and I grew milo, and I grew soybeans. And I didn’t make a damn dime farming.”

It took Miller two years after he returned to the farm, but he learned to trust his father that farming wasn’t going to work—especially amid the current economy.

“I said if I’m going to lose money on every crop, that isn’t making any equipment payments,” he said. 

The family’s cow/calf operation had always remained a stable income, he said. He began to explore turning his cash grain production acres to cover crops for grazing. The operation also includes 8,000 acres of native grass. 

365 days of grazing

The family grazes cattle 365 days a year, Miller said.

“Everything we do is a systems approach,” Miller said. “Nothing can change without affecting one thing down the road.”

They rarely feed hay any more, he said. And, there is no bare ground. The only thing the family harvests these days is pounds of beef per acre.

Miller uses a spring-planted mix of oats, peas, rapeseed, barley and triticale, which the cattle graze in early summer. Last year, he planted yellow sweet clover into his dryland acres and alfalfa on his irrigated acres.

The perennial legumes are the most expensive component of his spring seed mix, he said, but added, “If I can keep them fixing nitrogen year around, I reduce my seed costs and reduce my weed pressure and I have some more cover.”

This mix also is helpful in breaking up soil compaction in the top few inches of the soil profile, he said.

Yearlings are moved to a sorghum-sudan mix in mid-August. Those yearlings are eventually sold. Miller then weans the current year’s calf crop, which graze on a mix of brachytic dwarf forage sorghum, cowpeas, sunn hemp, turnips, radish, forage rapeseed and sunflowers—an after-frost winter stockpile.

That’s followed by a mix of rye and hairy vetch that the cattle graze from March to the beginning of June.

Rye is his favorite plant because of its allelopathic properties. The rye, along with keeping the ground covered, has helped reduce his chemical bill.

The 8,000 acres of native range is rotational grazed between cover crop gaps, he said.

Miller calves in May. He raises his own bulls and retains his replacement heifers.

With his yearling calves, his cost of gain is anywhere from 45 to 65 cents a pound, depending on what the cattle are grazing. For instance, during the summer, the cattle average 2.3 pounds of gain a day—or an average 400 pounds of beef an acre.

Improved soil health

The changes he has made in just a few short years have been noticeable, Miller said. Soil health has improved. There are more wildlife and birds, too.

He is also building his mycorrhizal network, he said. Mycorrhizal fungi are the first step to break chemical bonds, making unavailable nutrients available.

“Then we can wake the soil microbes up and the cycle starts working,” he said. “You start seeing more earthworms.”

There is less erosion in his fields. Water infiltration has increased.

“We have been using cover crops and grazing for three years. Now I’m not afraid to get an inch of rain and drive across the field with a pickup. It’s not an issue anymore.”

Economic decision

“It’s nice to have someone you can relate to a little bit,” said Reno County’s Blew. “He’s doing some of the same things we are in respect to stockpiling the summer forages and utilizing that through the winter—strip grazing it rather than harvested feed costs. It’s very similar to what we have done.”

Blew took one irrigated circle out of production that had a corn actual production history of 200 or more. He planted it to Bermuda grass.

“We are going to take three more out of production and plant it to a cool season grass this fall,” he said. “We’re going to double down on cows. It makes you a little nervous, we are not as diversified as we were. But, at the same time, we are in the same boat he is.”

It was an economic decision for Blew. However, with his operation in the middle of the Cheney Lake Watershed, the changes also mean improved soil health and nutrient utilization, along with less erosion. He won’t be using as much chemicals and fertilizer. By watering at night, he expects to be more efficient with his irrigation use.

With his combine for sale, if he ever decides to plant a cash crop again, he will have it custom harvested, Blew said.

Miller, meanwhile, traded in his combine for a skid loader.

“I’ve gone to grazing every acre I have and I haven’t looked back,” Miller said. “I’ve been a heck of a lot happier.”

Amy Bickel can be reached at [email protected].