In Butler County, Ohio, as in many parts of the country, livestock production has declined over the past 30 years. It has declined in number of animals and the number of dollars generated to farms. A larger decline however has been in the number farms with livestock. Beef operations have not declined as dramatically as swine and dairy. There are still many small producers with a few head of beef on their property.

In the 1970’s, we were asked by Dave Gerber, area swine specialist, to make a list of the farmers we knew produced at least 1,000 pigs in a year. A 1,000 pig operation was seen as a large operation then. He wanted to target information to those “large” producers. If I remember correctly, there were 22 farms on my list for Butler County. According to the 2007 Ag Census there were only 3 farms in the county that sold 1,000 or more swine animals and they sold 28,590.

In 1977 there were 80 farms in the county that sold milk. We are down to 8 producing dairy farms now.

Isn’t it ironic that when the price of fertilizer was low we had a lot more farms raising livestock and producing manure? In fact, I heard a specialist say in the late ‘70’s that fertilizer was so inexpensive it didn’t pay to replace it with manure. The cost of hauling the manure was more than its value as plant nutrient. Of course the manure had to be hauled, but we saw it as a waste product instead of an input.

Now that fertilizer costs have dramatically increased, the opposite is true. We have few farms producing any quantity of manure and the value as plant nutrient is huge.

Nitrogen costs, approximately 50 to 55 cents per pound, phosphorus (P) is 75 to 80 cents per pound and potassium (K) is 70 to 75 cents per pound.

You can get about $16 to $18 of nutrient per ton of cattle manure and supply your phosphorus and potassium needs for 150 bushel corn with 8.5 ton of manure per acre. 3,000 gallons of swine manure will meet the P and K needs for 150 bushel corn and if injected, 50 percent of the nitrogen needs.

You can go to www.ohioline.osu.edu/

b604/index/html and click on “Manure Characteristics” to look at nutrient levels of manure from different species, stage of development and fresh or composted manures. There is a great deal of variability and the nutrients and tonnages I have used are only a couple of examples.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Steve Bartels may write to him in care of this publication.