Context
For several months, dairy sector is facing an important crisis due to the decreasing profitability of milk production. This situation tend to be intensified by factors such as the suppression of milk quotas in coming years, volatile market, raising production cost (fertilizer, feed, energy), or highest exigencies (norms, social responsibilities,…). This specific context lead to the fact that 1/5 of dairy farmers are currently ready to stop their activities if any improvement occurs (survey of the “Direction du Développement et de la Vulgarisation”). These last 20 years, the number of dairy farmers has already decreased of 70%, 19 382 in 1984 to 5563 in 2007. To tackle those changes, the farmers must, optimize all aspects of the farming system: economic, environmental, social, production, as a manager.Objectives
To encourage dairy farmers in overcoming current crisis, the project propose to analyze differents aspects (economics, environmental, zootechnical, social) of the dairy sector and to work with a typology of farms according to their management system. The global goal, is to formulate concrete ideas allowing the farmers to improve there income, labor time and sustainability of activities, in function of their own herd management.Description of tasks
1. Farms selection Different farming system will be studied:- organic farms
- farms with high/low investments in technical system (equipment, milking robot, cowshed,…) working with or without amortized infrastructures and mechanics.
- farms working in great level of feed self-sufficiency vs those that buy a major part of feed
- zero-grazing farms
- farms managed in association (family, relatives,…) Moreover, the project will take into account farms specialized in dairy production, farms integrating a mixed activity agriculture-breeding, and farms in breeding system only (cattle breading and dairy production for example).
2. Farms global analysis For each kind of management system, several factors will be analyzed:
- Production and cost price structure
- Consequence of technical decision, on the production profitability (economic but also social or environmental).
- Labor time (method: “labor assessment”)
- Sustainability (method: IDEA Indicators)
Expected results
- Analyze and compare sustainability and management system of different types of dairy farms. - Point strength and weakness of each farm - Spread information/results in order to enable the farmers to develop in an efficient way their own farming system.Contribution
Production and Sectors Department:- Crops Production Systems Unit
- Animal Nutrition and Sustainability Unit
- Animal Breeding, quality Production and Welfare Unit
Partners
Filière wallonne lait et produits laitiers (FLPLW),AWE (Service technico-économique et Service Recherche & Développement),
FWA (Centre de gestion) et
la DGARNE (Direction de l’Analyse Economique Agricole).
Funding
- DGRNE Natural Resources and the Environment
