132 Late-Breaking: Whole-farm system comparisons of organic and conventional beef production in the Southern High Plains of United States.

Abstract The organic foods demands are increasing around the world. The rise of consumer interest in alternative to conventional beef, specifically associated with environmental issues, engaged producers to find alternatives such organic management also to have a better economic return from premium price. Therefore, our objective was to evaluate whole-farm production, environmental and economic of conventional and organic management of beef production systems, using actual data from Clayton Livestock Research Center (CLRC) located in the Southern High Plains of United States. The CLRC (130 ha size), located in southwest USA, produces grain-fed beef using large amounts of imported concentrate feed. We assessed the whole-farm approach of conventional grain-fed beef and organic grass-fed beef using only farm-grown feed systems using Integrated Farm System Model (IFSM). We calibrated the IFSM model based on data collected at CLRC, from literature and from IFSM databases. Those set parameters were used for both management strategies to simulate over a 25-year local representative period (1998 -2022). The result illustrated that under organic management net animal weight production was reduced 86% per hectare due to the low number of cattle herds (340) compared to conventional (1,100). With organic management, net return per ha increased by 48% ($212.15) due to the premium price of organic meat and reduced costs on livestock expenses. Three of the major environmental impacts of cattle farming were simulated; reactive N footprint (RNF), energy footprint (EF) and carbon footprint (CF). Per unit of product, the organic management increased RNF by 40%, EF by 67% and CF by 150%. For productivity and environmental, conventional performed better; although, for economic organic outperformed, but had the highest environmental impacts per unit of product. Declines in productivity under organic management led to the raise in these impacts per unit of meat produced. Therefore, we conclude that maintaining conventional management at CLRC mitigated tis environmental impacts.