Regional animal feed centre as an intermediary between fodder farming and milk production

摘要

A regional feed centre buys crops from grassland farmers and arable farmers. These crops can provide roughage or concentrates for dairy cows. It processes these fodders into balanced total mixed rations (TMR) and delivers them to dairy farmers. A feed centre makes it possible to optimize fodder production at the regional level rather than at the farm level. It also stimulates arable farmers to grow fodder, like they produce concentrates, for the dairy sector. Calculations of another exploratory study (Walsum etal., 2014) showed that optimization of fodder production at regional level reduces nutrient losses to surface water by 10-20%. The advantage of a regional feed centre for dairy farmers is that they can outsource the storage of fodder and feedingof the cows. On the other hand, the feed centres provide an additional service that costs money and give more traffic. The cost of a feed centre depends on its size and its distance to fodder farmers and dairy farmers. A large feed centre creates less overhead costs, but more traffic. Therefore a model calculation (Waterwijs) has been made for the region 'The Peel' in the Province Brabant. In this study arable farmers grow 60% of the concentrates requirement of the dairy cows. This model optimizes the number and locations of the feed centres by minimizing the total overhead costs of the feed centres and the total transport cost of fodder (roughage and concentrates) to the feed centre and of TMR to the dairy farmers. When 10% of the total number of 150,000 dairy farmers participate in 'The Peel' the optimum is two feed centres. In this optimal situation the total cost of the service of a feed centre and transport is ? 2 per 100 kg milk.