Integrated Resource Management for Colorado Beef and Sheep Producers

Since the early 1980's, Colorado beef producers have significantly improved the efficiencies (cost and physical production) of their businesses. Producers more fully recognize the importance of an integrated management approach to the farm or ranch business. The future points more and more to the continued attention of land-grant universities and other agricultural entities to integration of all facets of farm or ranch business management.

The Colorado Integrated Resource Management (IRM) project was formally initiated July 1, 1983, with the goal of "increasing by 10 percent the pounds of calf produced per economic unit, in a financially beneficial way, within the next 5 years." Achievement of this goal stressed an overall increased level of reproductive management and:

Reduction in the length of the breeding season;

Reduction in calf and cow losses due to abnormal or difficult labor/birth;

Reduction in newborn calf losses due to disease, particularly diarrhea, and;

Incorporation of sound economic analyses in management decisions.

To achieve the primary purpose of the IRM project of maximizing profits at the farm level, improvement of management in three major areas production, finance, and marketing must be addressed. These areas are highly integrated. Producers must develop a complete management and analysis system. Thus, the IRM project was conceived as an multidisciplinary, management-oriented study of beef cattle production and associated resources.

How IRM Began

Representatives from the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, Colorado Wool Growers, Cooperative Extension Service, and the Agricultural Experiment Station planned the project in December 1982.

The IRM project combined the expertise of ranchers, Cooperative Extension Agents, and an IRM investigative team, reflecting the integrated, multidisciplinary nature of the project. Viewed separately, each seems to represent one of three levels of activity the producer, the technical adviser, and the researcher.

Disciplines included at the level of the IRM team are reproduction physiology, range management, agricultural economics, animal science, veterinary science, and wildlife and recreation.

The Colorado IRM project currently involves eight participating ranchers. Dispersed throughout the State, they represent the major geographical and climatological regions that is, high plains (northern and southern), high mountain country, and western desert. Each works closely with a local Extension Agent.

The first task of an IRM agent, ranch cooperator, and the local Extension Agent is to develop a 5-year ranch plan with production and performance goals. Additionally, the Extension Agent and rancher are to identify those problems that the cooperator perceives as most immediate. The cooperator must actively participate in the program, identify important problems, and implement the program.

Calves are being separated from their mothers as a way of getting them ready for branding. (USDA Photo, 0578X537-29a)

Systematic Approach

The IRM project's philosophy involves a systematic, team approach to problem solving and decisionmaking.

This aspect of the IRM project is extremely important. Since the financial burden of any changes incorporated into the existing management scheme is borne by the individual cooperator, it is the responsibility of the entire IRM team to provide as much information as possible relating to the potential benefits and costs of alternative actions. For example, a recommendation by a beef specialist that a cooperator maintain production records on his or her breeding herd to assess performance must include information about the potential benefit/cost tradeoff.