Role of the advisor to improve reproductive efficiency and cash flow in intensive dairy cattle production systems

Abstract

The objective of this work was to carry out a review of how reproductive efficiency can be improved in dairies. Dairying in the world is demanding changes to which we have to constantly adapt if we want to remain in the system. The constant variation in the price of a liter of milk paid to the producer and in the cost of inputs that are affected by the demand and the economic policies of each country, have installed in the dairy producer the idea that milk production is a bad business due to the low profitability of the sector with respect to other less demanding agricultural activities such as agriculture. However, when analyzing production costs, there is a very wide variation between farms depending on the efficiency and effectiveness with which each establishment performs. The dairy chain has historically presented a dynamic conditioned by demand (internal and external) that ends up setting prices for the primary producer, thus conditioning the productive and technological path of the sector, giving rise to recurring conflicts of interest between producers and industrialists. The subsidy policies that are applied many times end up solving the specific situation of the producer, complicating the situation of the markets of other countries. The countries with the largest surpluses of milk, such as New Zealand, the United States of America, Germany, France, Australia and Ireland, have to sell a large part of their production to other markets, often complicating the producers of the importing countries, for which they must become increasingly efficient in order to compete with countries that subsidize primary production.