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Grass-fed and Organic Beef: Production Costs and Breakeven Market Prices, 2008 and 2009

Authors
  • Denise Schwab (Iowa State University)
  • Margaret Smith (Iowa State University)
  • H. Joe Sellers (Iowa State University)
  • Jim Munsch (Deer Run Farm)
  • Laura Paine (Wisconsin Department of Agriculture)
  • Terry Gompert (University of Nebraska–Lincoln)

Abstract

Higher prices offered for grass-fed and organic grassfed beef appear attractive, but production costs, in many cases, are also higher than for conventional beef. With accurate costs of grass-fed beef production beef producers and potential producers can use these tools to make better informed decisions about entering this specialty beef production stream, establishing breakeven selling prices and determining the necessary selling price for economic sustainability of the enterprise. These data suggest that in in 2008 and 2009, after adjustments are made for cull cow sales, these producers would need to receive $209/hundredweight of live market animal produced to breakeven.

Keywords: ASL R2682

How to Cite:

Schwab, D., Smith, M., Sellers, H. J., Munsch, J., Paine, L. & Gompert, T., (2012) “Grass-fed and Organic Beef: Production Costs and Breakeven Market Prices, 2008 and 2009”, Iowa State University Animal Industry Report 9(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/ans_air-180814-960

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Published on
2012-01-01

Peer Reviewed

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0