A comparative economic analysis of factory-produced and farm-produced fodder

摘要

The aim of this essay is to compare animal production systems based on factory-oduced fodder and farm-produced fodder. In the private economic analysis the relative gain of using a farm-produced fodder versus a factory-produced fodder is calculated from the point of view of a single animal producer. The social economic analysis includes some environmental effects and products, and production factors are valued according to their social economic opportunity cost. In some cases it has not been possible to monetarize the impact of some variables although they can be of great importance for the result of the analysis. The analyses are carried out for milk-, egg- and meatproduction. The private economic analysis shows that farm-produced fodder in general leaves the farmer slightly better off. The prices set by cooperation graintraders are crucial for this result. When an animal producer decides what fodder to use he has to regard a couple of not monetarized variables that have the character of not actual costs. This fact might imply that single animal producers do not include this variables in the decisions. There is also a couple of institutional factors the animal producer has to consider when he chooses between factory-produced and farm-produced fodder. Changes in these institutional variables may change the relative profitability of using factory-produced and farm-produced fodder. It is difficult to forsee the consequenses of a Swedish membership in the EC but a general observation is that factory-produced fodder gains relatively more from a high grain price because the fodder industry has a better opportunity to substitute grain with other rawproducts and, especially, to lower transaction costs than a single animal producer. The factory-produced fodder leads to a better social economic result in all studied production alternatives. The sensitivity analysis shows that the results are stable for all tested values of studied environmental effects except one case for milk production. The environmental effects that have the relatively largest impact on the social economic results are landscape, nitrogen, leaching and alternative use of arable land. Present agricultural policy seems to be a precondition for the fodder industry. Freetrade policy would lead to falling fodder prices. This fact would lower the relative gain of substituting grain for other fodder rawproducts. A lower intensity in agricultural production also reduces the gain of using farm-produced fodder in the social economic analysisbecause in the case of farm-produced fodder relative more grain is used. A high intensity in grain production also leads to less arable land in production. From a social economic point of view, and with the actual agriculture policy, factory-produced fodder is preferable on the margin. From a social economic point of view is factoryproduced fodder on the margin to preter with the actual agricultural policy, or with small changes of the policy which is the case with a Swedish membership in the EEC.