Milk Production Systems - Reality and Vision
2007
Gazzarin, Ch., Forschungsanstalt Agroscope Reckenholz-Taenikon ART, Ettenhausen (Switzerland)
From an economic point of view a desirable and family-compatible farm structure within the present general framework would be 50_60 cows in lowland regions, 30_40 cows in hill regions and 20_30 in the highlands. For many farms, however, this vision would mean doubling or tripling current output. For the majority of farms various costs are associated with this growth step. These include expanding the forage area, constructing loose housing with labour-saving technical facilities and obtaining supply contract quantities. While the cost of the latter can be expected to decrease due to the abolition of quo-tas, most farms can hardly avoid taking out a sizeable loan for building investment, which only makes sense if the farm manager is young or the succession is assured. On top of this there is the expense of expanding the utilised agricultural area: in many intensive dairy regions additional forage areas are simply not available or at least not in the amount required. No wonder many farmers prefer to main-tain the status quo, cultivate other mainstays and fund any loss of income by expanding different sources of earnings (even a second job) . At this point it is doubtful whether this can promote the fu-ture success of Swiss milk production.
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Este registro bibliográfico ha sido proporcionado por Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon Research Station