As the agricultural landscape faces shifting federal priorities, the Grassland 2.0 project is pivoting toward private partnerships and innovative tools to demonstrate that grazing is a profitable practice.
Central to this effort is the Heifer Grazing Compass, a digital tool designed to help dairy producers calculate the benefits of transition. By keeping heifers on pasture rather than shipping them out of state to feedlots, farmers can significantly reduce overhead, explains Sarah Lloyd, value chain coordinator for the Grassland 2.0 project at UW-Madison.
“You can probably save like a dollar per head per day in raising heifers on grass in well-managed systems,” says Lloyd.
The benefits extend beyond the ledger. Increasing acreage dedicated to perennial grass helps mitigate nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, a persistent issue in the Upper Midwest. This environmental data is becoming increasingly valuable as consumer brands seek to back up ecological claims.
“Heifer grazing is 24 months of the animal’s life. It’s not insignificant,” Lloyd notes, emphasizing the project’s goal to help farmers navigate measurement and verification within the global supply chain.
See Sarah Lloyd and learn more at the upcoming GrassWorks Grazing Conference: https://grassworks.org/grazing-conference/
