Rotational Grazing Adoption by Cow-Calf Operations

Rotational grazing is a management practice in which livestock are cycled through multiple fenced grazing areas (paddocks) in order to manage forage production, forage quality, animal health, and environmental quality. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other organizations promote rotational grazing as an important grazing practice for providing improved environ-mental outcomes, relative to continuous grazing, in which livestock are not cycled between grazing areas. USDA, NRCS provides financial assistance for rotational grazing and related management practices through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and technical assistances through the Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA) program. Despite the breadth of support for rotational grazing, only limited information is available on the prevalence of rotational grazing and the variation in how producers implement the practice, including details on how frequently or “intensively” grazing operations rotate livestock between paddocks and how outcomes such as stocking density and cost relate to system characteristics. This study uses data from the 2018 Agricultural Resource Management Survey Cattle and Calves Cost and Returns Report to fill this information gap. The study finds that about 40 percent of cow-calf operations use rotational grazing, but adoption rates vary by production regions. Most rotational grazing systems are relatively simple. Only 40 percent of cow-calf operations that report using rotational grazing operations use an intensive rotational grazing schedule.