An Economic Comparison of Sheep Grazing Systems on the Northern Tablelands of NSW

Three 54ha "farmlets" were established in 2000 near Uralla, NSW to trial high input, moderate input and intensive rotational grazing systems. A representative farm approach was used to interpret the profitability results of the trial from July 2000 to June 2005 at a commercial scale level to make research results more relevant to farmers. At the gross margin level, the high input farmlet had the highest annual gross margins, but this farmlet had the worst whole farm performance. These contrasting results support the claim that annual activity gross margins cannot alone indicate the profitability of an investment. This demonstrates that whole farm analysis is the most suitable method to assess different grazing systems.