| The USDA's National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) collected data on management practices and cow-calf herds as a source of family income from a representative sample of cow-calf producers from 23 of the leading cow-calf states. Overall, 2,713 producers with one or more beef cows participated in the NAHMS Beef '97 Study, representing 85.7 percent of the beef cows and 77.6 percent of the beef cow operations in the United States as of January 1997. Producers whose cow-calf herds were the primary source of family income were more productive than those whose herds were a supplemental source of income. Cow-calf herds were the primary source of income for 14 percent of the producers and provided supplemental income for 69 percent of the producers.... |
