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Water and Drought

Beef Producers Survive Drought

Dade County and the northwest Georgia area have experienced droughts the past three years. Since water is a valuable natural resource needed to sustain livestock and forage production, producers had to find ways to manage with less. Producers were faced with reducing their beef herd size, improving their pastures and hay fields, and looking for ways to conserve water. The Dade County Cooperative Extension agent responded by conducting educational programs on topics related to the drought. These included a series of programs on pasture improvement and beef cattle management, in addition to holding annual forage field days. The focus was to provide producers with management tools that would allow them to better manage their operations in times of drought. The RFQ (Relative Forage Quality) values on forage samples increased by 18 percent from 2006 to 2007. These results indicate that forage quality has increased and livestock producers are feeding and producing higher quality forage. Emergency funding was also secured to dig wells and clean out farm ponds with a 50 percent cost share to producers. These funds have enabled producers to provide water to livestock during these drier periods of the year. All these efforts have helped producers protect themselves from a dramatic rise in production costs. (2007)

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