The love of tillage is the root of all evil.

Jim Gerrish, owner of American GrazingLands Services LLC of May, Idaho, used this phrase to emphasize his message of the advantages of cattle producers using grazing to feed their cattle.

Gerrish spoke to nearly 100 cattle producers from the region who were in attendance for the first day of the 2009 Bovine Connection to Profit convention at the Williston Airport International Inn. The two-day convention concludes Thursday afternoon.

The presentation by Gerrish, called "Living Without Oil and Iron," is a call to regional cattle producers to consider the advantages of grazing over producing and harvesting feed for their animals. Gerrish told the crowd the advantages to grazing are financial and environmental.

"Shaving costs isn't the answer, amputating them is the answer," said Gerrish. Gerrish said the primary business of farming and ranching is to capture solar energy. He said you may be producing a crop, milk or beef, but capturing solar energy to help stimulate growth of crops or pasture is the primary task.

Gerrish said if this is your goal, you can eliminate labor costs. The way to do this, he said, is by cutting the need for machinery and the expensive task of producing feed. The most effective way of achieving this is to graze cattle.

Gerrish said feeding cattle by producing feed is expensive for a number of reasons. He said these include the cost of the machinery, the cost of fossil fuels to operate it, the excessive amount of nutrients that are taken from the soil and other things such as fertilizers and labor.

Gerrish said the soil suffers, the producer's bottom line is greatly diminished and a large amount of time is used in producing and transporting the feed.

The cost of machinery and fuel has also jumped considerably over the years. Gerrish said in 1971 while working at his family's farm in Missouri, a baler was purchased for about $4,200. Today's price for the same baler is about $35,000.

"Diesel fuel used to be about, I believe it was 16 cents a gallon in 1971. Now it's about $2 a gallon," said Gerrish.

Gerrish said using those numbers, the cost of equipment is eight times more and fuel is about 12 times more, while the cost of the products they produce have only about doubled since then.

"All these inputs are higher, and will continue to do so," said Gerrish.

He added the savings from grazing compared to producing hay add up.

Gerrish said grazing typically costs $1 less per day for a mature beef cow, compared to hay feeding. If hay feeding were completely eliminated and 100 cattle grazed for a full 120-day grazing year, a producer could save $12,000.

Gerrish said cattle producers could cut these costs almost entirely through what he calls management-intensive grazing.

He said having well-managed pastures for grazing are far more effective than hay fields or set stocked pastures. Gerrish said if you manage the pasture well by maintaining an appropriate stock density, keeping taller residuals and having high-quality forage for the animals helps keep costs down. The animals themselves would then provide the appropriate levels of manure and urine, rich in nitrogen, to replenish the soil.

"The right grazing management can keep your annual fertilizer costs to less than $10 per acre," said Gerrish.

Gerrish said research is continuously done to find better ways to farm and ranch. He feels there isn't really such a large need to produce an excessive amount of research.

"We just need better implementation of what we already know," he said.

Jim Gerrish and wife, Dawn, own and operate American GrazingLands Services LLC, which assists farmers and ranchers in planning effective strategies for maintaining grazing lands, while also providing on-ranch consulting. They also attend numerous seminars nationally each year.

He worked for over 20 years for the University of Missouri as a faculty member and his research leadership helped to build the university's Forage Systems Research Center to national prominence. He also worked on his family's farm in Missouri for over 20 years.

For more information on American GrazingLands Services, LLC, visit www.americangrazinglands.com.