Foreward
U.S. agriculture is characterized by trends toward fewer and larger farms,
fewer farmers, and a shift in economic power from the farm sector to the
inputs and marketing sectors. Reversing these trends will require the
development of viable alternatives to conventional cash grain farms and
other large-scale farming enterprises. Toward this end, the USDA National
Commission on Small Farms has called for the development of farm management
models emphasizing lower capital investment, more intensive management, and
increased income through high value crops and creative marketing.
The best information on alternative farming systems comes from those farmers
who actually take approaches outside of the mainstream. Their successes and
failures are grounded in the real world. Unfortunately, these
unconventional farmers are often few in number, and many of the alternative
systems that could potentially work in various regions have not been tried.
Adoption of new systems is risky. Traditional agricultural research is of
limited help because it usually addresses individual practices rather than
whole systems.
Economic and environmental models of farming systems offer a means of
evaluating a wide range of alternative farming systems at low cost and no
risk. While much modeling is done with computers, simpler approaches can
also serve for preliminary assessments and as teaching tools.
This report demonstrates a low-cost procedure for conducting simple
economic, energy, and environmental analyses of farming systems, and for
synthesizing the results into a qualitative assessment of relative
sustainability. The approach uses data from readily available sources, and
can be tailored to meet the particular questions of a specific region or
type of agriculture. It is designed to serve as both an educational and a
research tool.
The approach is demonstrated by evaluating five alternative farming systems
for eastern Nebraska — conventional corn/soybean, modified conventional,
agroforestry, organic, and pasture-based beef. The basic approach to
modeling the five systems, and the main results of their evaluation are
presented in the first 44 pages of this report. The remainder of the 292
page report consists of appendices in which the assumptions, data sets and
calculations used to produce the results are described in detail.
Results of the economic comparisons show that net farm income from the
agroforestry and organic systems exceeds that of the two conventional
systems even though the alternative systems use 1/3 less land. Other model
outputs used to evaluate the five systems include income variability, per
acre production costs and returns for each crop, weekly labor requirements,
energy budgets, soil erosion, and nutrient budgets. The results suggest
that farming systems can be developed that allow smaller farms to be
economically and environmentally competitive with larger conventional farms.
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Baseline descriptions for the five farm types
III. Operational descriptions of the five farm types
IV. Single-year economic comparisons
V. Long-term economic variability
VI. Energy analysis and comparison of five farming systems
VII. Nutrient budgets and soil erosion
VIII. Relative sustainability of five farming systems
Appendix 1. Deriving baseline descriptions
Appendix 2. Machinery tables
Appendix 3. Selected reference materials
Appendix 4. Economic analysis
4A. Conventional
4B. Modified conventional
4C. Agroforestry
4D. Organic
4E. Beef
Appendix 5. Estimating income variability
Appendix 6. Energy budgets.
Appendix 7. Erosion and nutrient budgets
Appendix 8. Sustainability
References
Richard Olson
University of Nebraska
PO Box 830949
Lincoln, NE 68583-0949
P: 402-472-0917
F: 402-472-4104
E: csas005@unlvm.unl.edu
To order, send a check payable to the University of Nebraska for $10.00
(note it is for Volume 8) to Center for Sustainable Agricultural Systems, U.
Nebraska, PO Box 830949, Lincoln, NE 68583-0949. For questions, call the
CSAS office, 402-472-2056. Information about other volumes in the series can
be found at http://ianrwww.unl.edu/ianr/csas/vol1-5.htm
*****************************************************************************
Heidi Carter E-Mail: csas007@unlvm.unl.edu
Education Coordinator Phone: 402-472-0917
Center for Sustainable Agricultural Systems
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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