Benruds find paddocks help them farm full-time on small acreage

Agri News
Thursday, June 23, 2005
http://webstar.agrinews.com/agrinews/1317308564990.bsp

Benruds find paddocks help them farm full-time on small acreage

Livestock needed to make living on 270 acres

By Janet Kubat Willette
Agri News staff writer

GOODHUE, Minn. — The songs of meadowlarks, bobolinks, dickcissels, tree swallows and bluebirds serenade Roger, Michelle and Emily Benrud as they walk amid their crossbred cows.

The 90 cows graze year-round on paddocks seeded with perennial grasses. Their 25 heifers also graze as do the calves after they are weaned.

Grazing has allowed the family to meet their goal of having both Michelle and Roger farming full time. The farm is profitable and government payments have went from being the profit to being the extra.

Roger used to grow row crops, but he knew he'd need livestock to make a living on 270 acres. He was also bothered by the gullies he saw in his no-tilled soybean fields.

No-till isn't bad, Roger said, but he certainly saw more soil loss then than now when his soil is held with perennial vegetation.

Their production system has other benefits, according to an article that appeared in the January issue of the journal BioScience.

The article chronicled the results of study done from 1999 to 2001 in the Wells Creek Watershed in Goodhue County and a sub-watershed of the Chippewa River in Chippewa and Swift counties. The study, "Multiple Benefits of Agriculture," analyzed four scenarios and the impacts those scenarios would have on the landscape. The project was funded by the Legislative Commission on Natural Resources. The Land Stewardship Project coordinated the research.

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