Jon Biermacher, Ph.D.
Senior Economist
Jon Biermacher generates useful economic information in the areas of forage-based beef production and marketing, pecan production and marketing, and specialty agriculture production and marketing. Examples of forage-based beef production systems being analyzed in the program include: economic feasibility of conservation tillage and forage establishment systems, economic feasibility of perennial cool-season forage systems (such as tall fescue and orchard grass), economic feasibility of byproduct supplementation programs for winter stocker cattle grazing systems, economic potential for using alternative practices for managing cull cows, and economic feasibility of using cover crops in cool-season cereal forage grazing systems. Biermacher's research also focuses on generating useful economic information for a number of alternative, value-added enterprises that a substantial number of agricultural producers have expressed interest in pursuing in the region. Examples of these enterprises include determining the economic potential for producing fruit and vegetable crop systems in passive solar greenhouses; the economic feasibility of pecan orchard establishment, management and marketing systems; and the economic feasibility of alternative retained ownership and nontraditional marketing of preconditioned beef calves.
Current Research
The Problem
As new production and marketing systems are developed, agricultural producers will seek reliable, unbiased information about the economic benefits and costs associated with these new systems before they adopt them on their farms and ranches.
The Approach
Utilizes economic models to evaluate the expected benefits and costs associated with newly developed, technologically enhanced production and marketing systems that are developed via on-farm research projects by researchers at the Noble Research Institute.
Current Projects
- Economic evaluation of novel tall fescue grazing systems
- Economic evaluation of alternative irrigation systems used to establish pecan orchards
- Economic evaluation of vegetable production systems grown in high tunnel hoop houses
- Economic evaluation of alternative cull cow management and marketing practices
- Economic evaluation of yield and quality traits in bermudagrass cultivars