Use of beef steers for profitable management of biologically valuable semi-natural pastures in Sweden

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Cessation of grazing is an increasing threat to the biodiversity rich semi-natural pastures in Sweden due to a decreased number of grazing livestock despite environmental payments for management of these pastures. The aim of this study is to compare the profitability of raising beef breed calves as intact bulls kept indoors after weaning and slaughtered at 15 months to raising them as steers grazing semi-natural pastures and slaughtered at 20, 25 or 30 months of age. The 20 and 25 month steers graze one summer and the 30 month steers two summers post-weaning. Profitability is calculated as gross margin to cover fixed costs of the farm and background data is obtained from an animal experiment and official Swedish standard budgets. The comparisons include alternatives with holdings situated in one out of two districts (plain or forest) and with one out of six types of semi-natural pasture (low- or high-yielding pasture, pasture with payment on a base level only or with extra payment for special values, 100% semi-natural pasture or 50% semi-natural pasture with 50% complementary ley pasture). The result suggests that the 30 month steer is the most profitable production system in most of the studied alternatives provided that the present environmental payments, single farm payment and support for less favoured areas are maintained. Bulls are more profitable than 30 month steers only if the semi-natural pasture is both high-yielding and entitled payment on a base level only. The 20 and 25 month steers have no economical competitiveness in any of the alternatives studied. Steers with two post-weaning grazing seasons seem to be a cost-efficient way to preserve the grazing dependent biodiversity in Sweden and other parts of Europe with increasing shortage of calves.