Working time required for farm management - A causal-empirical approach to determine the working time required for dairy production | Temps de travail requis par les activites de gestion dans l'agriculture - Detemination du temps de travail dans la production laitiere: approche causale et empirique.

Production- and farm-management tasks occupy a central position on farms. This is not only because of the time required to carry out these activities, but also because they are essential for the continued existence of the farm. The data available in this area for planning purposes corresponds neither quantitatively nor qualitatively to the importance of production- and farm-management tasks in agriculture. The aim of this paper is to develop reliable planning data for production management, using the example of dairy farming. Besides the actual numerical data itself, in the first instance we require a systematic breakdown and a new methodical approach for data recording. The classification is applicable to other production processes in agriculture, distinguishes between the different production-management tasks, and guarantees optimum apportionability. The methodical approach takes particular account of the special characteristics of production- and farm-management tasks and enables data to be recorded in a differentiated fashion for the individual farm, which meets the requirements of the accuracy level arising from the classification. The raw data filed in databases forms the basis for calculating the working-time requirement for production-management in dairy farming. For this purpose, in an analogous manner to the systematic breakdown, a calculation model was developed offering the option of calculating the working-time requirement in both aggregated and broken-down form. Two groups emerge from within the different categories of production-management tasks. The first group contains a high proportion of activities that must be performed for each individual animal, i.e. whose total duration increases along with the size of the herd. Accordingly, a strong positive correlation between the working-time requirement per herd and year and the number of cows kept was recorded for this group. For the second group of tasks, this correlation is close to nil, since there are no animal-related activities to be performed for these categories. If we calculate the working-time requirement of these tasks in MPh per cow and year, the economies of scale are a good deal more marked in this group than they are in the first group. A total of 71 farms in the different regions of Switzerland as well as in Baden-Württemberg in Germany were chosen for the data recording. The average herd size of the farms studied was 36 cows (minimum: 7 cows; maximum: 140 cows). Depending on the herd size, the working-time requirement for production management is between 8,3 and 37,6 MPh per cow and year (average: 16,6 MPh per cow and year). For the absolute value, there is a range of between 263 and 1281 MPh per herd and year (average: 493 MPh per year). The regression yielded from the values calculated for the individual farms, y = 7.954 + 216.381* 1/x with y = working-time requirement for production management [MPh per cow and year] and x = herd size [n cows] explains the dependence of the working-time required for production management per cow and year on the herd, with a coefficient of determination of R2 = 84,8 %. The percentage of the overall working-time requirement taken up by production- management tasks fluctuates between about 13 % and 24 %.