Effects of soils, fertilizers and stocking rates on pastures and beef production on the Wallum of South-East Queensland. 4. Budgetary appraisals of fertilizer and stocking rates

Abstract

Comparative budgeting techniques have been applied to the results of a grazing experiment in which the effects of different stocking rates and maintenance levels of fertilizer were examined. The experiment was carried out on grass/legume pastures in the coastal lowlands of south-east Queensland. The economic appraisal is of an investment project based on fattening purchased store cattle. Extrapolative trends have been fitted to the pattern of pasture production emerging from the first six years of an experimental period, to enable the life of the project to extend over a twenty year period. The recent sharp increases in the price of superphosphate and potassium fertilizer have had a marked effect on intensive beef production on improved pastures which is illustrated in this analysis. Pasture maintenance costs (principally fertilizer inputs) appear as the largest component of annual operating costs in most systems. The budgets indicate that at July 1973 fertilizer prices the positive internal rates of return of the various grazing systems range from 4.2 per cent to 13.2 per cent at a beef price of $0.77 kg-1 dressed weight. The highest return was obtained from a system in which 250 kg ha-1 single superphosphate and 63 kg ha-1 potassium chloride were applied annually and at a stocking rate of 1.65 beasts ha-1. These returns are reduced to a high of 10.4 per cent when 1974 fertilizer prices are incorporated. At beef prices of $0.66 kg-1, all systems but one were found to have negative internal rates of return. Assuming beef prices of $0.88 kg-1, most treatments were associated with positive internal rates of return, generally well above 10 per cent, ranging up to 20 per cent. Most of the calculations, by excluding land values from the budgeted cash flows, assume that unimproved land is already available at no charge to the investor. A series of supplementary budgets indicate the level of returns that could be expected if unimproved land commanded values of up to $200 ha-1.