Lecture 5

Animal Science 2
Dairy Production
GUIDE TO GOOD DAIRY FARMING
PRACTICE
A very good reference
for dairy management in
most production
systems
Published by the
International Dairy
Federation (IDF) and
the Food and
Agriculture
Organization (FAO)
A BASIS IN GOOD AGRICULTURAL
PRACTICE (GAP)
Good Agricultural Practice for dairy farmers
is about implementing sound practices on
dairy farms collectively called Good Dairy
Farming Practice.
These practices must ensure that the milk
and milk products produced are safe and
suitable for their intended use, and also that
the dairy farm enterprise is viable into the
future, from the economic, social and
environmental perspectives.
 Most importantly, dairy farmers are in the
business of producing food for human
consumption so they must be confident in the
safety and quality of the milk they produce.
Good dairy farming practice underpins the
production of milk that satisfies the highest
expectations of the food industry and
consumers.
 The international framework to ensure the
safety and suitability of milk and milk
products is contained in the
Codex Recommended International Code of
Practice General Principles of Food
Hygiene (CAC/RCP 1- 1969, Rev. 4, 2003)1
together with
the Codex Code of Hygienic Practice for
Milk and Milk Products (CAC/RCP 57-
2004)2.
 It recognizes that dairy farmers are an
integral part of a larger dairy food production
and processing chain and that all participants
in the chain
dairy farmers, suppliers to dairy farmers,
milk carriers and haulers, dairy product and
food manufacturers, distributors, retailers
and consumers
should be part of an integrated food safety
and quality assurance management system.
 The Guide picks up the principles within
these documents that relate to the
production of milk on farms.
Dairy farmers can play their part by ensuring
that good dairy farming practices are
implemented at the farm level.
 Good dairy farming practice also ensures that
the milk is produced by healthy animals in a
manner that is sustainable and responsible
from the animal welfare, social, economic and
environmental perspectives.
So implementing good dairy farming practice
is good risk management for the short and
long term future of the dairy farming
enterprise.
 The Guide encourages dairy farmers to adopt
proactive preventative practices rather than
waiting for problems to occur.
In summary, the Guide details Good
Agricultural Practice (GAP) for dairy farmers,
underpinning the production of safe, quality-
assured dairy products in a sustainable
manner that underpins the future of dairy
farming on a local, national and international
scale.
Decision Issues

Dairy production systems differ

It is largely dictated by the availability of
resources that include:
Land
Labor
Capital
Supply is not only dictated by demand but also
by the ability of the consumers to purchase
these products
Agro-pastoral vs. Conventional and
Intensive production systems
Pastoralism is a subsistence system for
producing meat, milk, and other animal
products from domesticated animals such as
goats, sheep, cattle, and camels.
It is practiced in marginal areas where crop
production is extremely difficult.
Agro-pastoralism is a set of practices that
combine pastoral livelihoods with production
of millet, sorghum, maize, vegetables, and
annual legumes.
 These systems are extremely important and
are the most prevalent land-use in arid and
semi-arid environments.
Sixty-five percent (65%) of global drylands
consist of grassland used for livestock
production contributing to the livelihoods of
800 million people (Mortimore, 2009)
Challenges
Pastoralism and agro-pastoralism have
traditionally been neglected as an important
sector in national economies.
The main source of vulnerability is drought,
leading to crop failure, weak animals and the
distress sale of assets.
 The key natural resource management (NRM)
challenges faced by pastoralists and agro-
pastoralists include:
Loss of fodder, forages and deforestation
Loss of biodiversity and ecosystem
functions and values.
Rangeland degradation (partially due to
climate change)
Intrusion of non-native varieties of plants,
weeds
Water scarcity and access
 Pastoralists and agro-pastoralists can play an
important role in achieving sustainable land
management.
Livestock transform poor-quality, bulky
vegetation into high-value products of
economic importance.
Livestock enhance system productivity by
recycling nutrients and providing manure.
 The byproduct of crop production (crop
residue) is a principal input for livestock
production, and the byproduct of livestock
(manure and draft power) is a key input for
the crop sector.
Livestock redistribute nutrients between
cropland and pastureland or within the
cropland between different plots (feeding
livestock on agricultural residues).
 High-input vs. Low-input Production Systems
A spectrum of dairy farming systems exist,
which range from pasture only with little or
no nitrogen fertiliser and no bought in feed to
total confinement systems with a range of
purchased feeds.
The term high input is therefore difficult
to define as what one person would consider
high input, another may consider normal or low
input.
 Consider a high input system to be a system
based around more cows per hectare than an
optimally stocked all pasture system (i.e.
maintain the same comparative stocking rate -
85 kg liveweight/ton dry matter, but carrying
more cows per hectare).
Alternatively a low input system is one which
uses pasture grown on the farm as its only
source of feed.
Limitations to an all-pasture system
New Zealands traditional pasture-based
system has been described internationally as
controlled starvation or by the more cynical
observers as uncontrolled starvation.
In this system an attempt is made to match
the demand of the cow for energy with the
provision of energy from grazed pasture.
 However, matching the demand for pasture
with peak pasture supply requires a
significantly higher stocking rate than can be
sustained on grazed pasture during the rest
of the year.
This often leads to underfed cows in early
and late lactation, even on optimally stocked
pasture only farms, due to differences in the
energy demand and supply curves.
 High input systems generally tend to make
better use of the genetic merit of the herds
compared with low input systems.
They generally have higher yielding cows due
to longer lactations, higher peak milk yields
and better persistency (Reid and Reid, 1997).
Having high yielding cows is important to
profitability, as they are more efficient at
converting feed energy into milk (i.e. a lower
proportion of energy consumed is required for
maintenance in high yielding cows).
 High input systems and the environment
One of the arguments often used against high
input systems is the negative effect that
they have on the environment.
The intensification of agriculture and the
high use of artificial fertilisers, and in
particular nitrogen fertilisers, have been
criticised in recent decades because of the
perceived effect they are having on the
environment.
 However, there are two decisions to make.
Do we want the worlds population to starve
or have food?
and, presuming we want food,
Do we want to preserve our natural
ecosystems?
NEXT TOPIC

GOALS IN DAIRY
PRODUCTION