Animal Feed
2025 NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan
The Animal Feed brief describes the unique opportunities and challenges that impact economically viable animal feed production in New Hampshire, including grains, forage, and pasture. The brief is one of 27 briefs created as part of the NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan.
What's at Stake?
According to the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture,1 New Hampshire’s dairy and livestock industry is a $90.7 million industry providing Granite Staters with a wide variety of meat and dairy products. The ability of this industry to thrive depends on dairy and livestock producers being able to harvest or purchase high-quality feeds that can meet the nutritional needs of beef and dairy cattle, sheep, goats and horses. Feed production depends on the availability of land, access to healthy soils including soil health amendments and services, and the successful matching of crops to soil conditions.
Current Conditions
The majority of livestock species are herbivores that can make use of forages. New Hampshire’s farms are capable of producing highly nutritious feed for livestock; the state’s shorter growing season and soils are well suited to grow perennial, cool-season grasses and legumes. Some areas, predominantly in the Connecticut and Merrimack River Valleys, feature extensive tracts of prime farmland suitable for annual crops. The cropping systems there include more acreage of corn harvested as silage. Recently, farms have begun to produce grain corn, soybeans, or cereal grains to reduce the need for importing these types of feed from the Midwest. All together, annual and perennial forages, silage corn, and grains comprise more than 75,000 acres of New Hampshire’s cropland. The majority of this feed is used on the farm where it is produced, though some sell to smaller homesteads and backyard producers who lack the land or equipment to produce feed themselves.
Recognizing the challenges posed by climate change, producers are adopting practices that improve soil health and provide greater flexibility; the use of cover crops, reducing tillage, and improving grazing management are making New Hampshire’s farms more productive and more resilient.
Challenges
> There is limited acreage for feed production in New Hampshire and development pressure threatens to reduce it further, resulting in barriers to land access for new farms and a more fragmented landscape, hindering efficient crop production.
> Climate change is increasing the frequency of erratic weather patterns that result in poor growing conditions. Farms may have difficulty maintaining the feed inventory and nutritional quality they need for their animals to support the production of milk and meat.
Opportunities
> There is substantial acreage of unused or under-utilized land that, with improvements, could significantly increase capacity for producing feed. With protections offered by conservation easements and long-term leases, farms are more likely to invest in making land more productive.
> There are already multiple organizations— USDA agencies, the NH Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food (NHDAMF), UNH Extension, NOFA-NH, county conservation districts, land trusts, and more— that are well suited to support dairy and livestock producers in meeting their feed needs and have a history of collaborating with each other. Maintaining staff and support for these organizations will help to ensure that these valuable partnerships continue.
Recommendations
Organizations working on this issue
Authors
Lead Author
Carl Majewski, Extension Field Specialist, Dairy, Livestock & Forage Crops, UNH Extension
Contributing Authors
Sarah Allen, Ph.D., Extension State Specialist, Dairy Production, UNH Extension
Katrina Klobucher, M.S., Extension Field Specialist, Livestock Production, UNH Extension
Si Robertson, Partner/Owner, Contoocook Creamery at Bohanan Farm
Daimon Meeh, NH State Grazing Specialist, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
This Animal Feed brief was developed through a participatory process led by the NH Food Alliance, a program of the University of New Hampshire. The brief content is comprised of the opinions, perspectives, and information gathered by the authors and participants, and does not necessarily represent those of the NH Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food or the NH Food Alliance.
Head to the NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan main page to read more briefs, browse recommendations and learn how the strategic plan was created.
References
1 United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Census of Agriculture, 2022 Census Volume 1, Chapter 2: County Level Data. Market Value of Agricultural Products Sold Including Food Marketing Practices and Value Added Products: 2022 and 2017, Table 2. Nass.usda.gov. Published February 13, 2024. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2022/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_2_County_Level/New_Hampshire/
