Dairy R&D in SA

The dairy industry in SA, as elsewhere, is grappling with significant challenges, including escalating costs and diminishing profit margins. However, these difficulties also create a pivotal opportunity for the sector to embrace sustainable practices that not only enhance environmental stewardship but also encourage economic resilience.

Sustainable food systems encompass nutrition, the environment and socioeconomics, each aspect requiring unique assessment and consideration.

Methane (CH₄) is the primary GHG of cattle, of which 80 to 90% is from enteric fermentation. It is this enteric fermentation that drives the narrative that cattle are detrimental to the climate and the environment in general, and thus the suggestion that globally cattle should be reduced and society increasingly rely more on alternative foods, such as plant-based.

Amidst growing global concerns over sustainability, the imperative for sustainable agriculture has become increasingly important. This urgency is enhanced by an increasing awareness among consumers and policymakers, the demands of activists, and the questionable influence of dietary choices on environmental sustainability.

Feed efficiency (FE) has major implications for dairy production profitability and indirectly for environmental sustainability. It thus has become a priority for monitoring the economic viability of milk production and the environmental footprint.

Feed efficiency traits such as dry matter intake (DMI) and gross feed efficiency (GFE) are imperative in the improvement of herd performance, profitability and sustainability. These traits are however normally not included in selection indices, because of the difficulty to measure DMI.

Cow fertility has recently received much more attention world-wide in breeding programmes than previously, because of its economic implications. Age at first calving (AFC) and calving interval (CI) are typically the parameters of choice in South Africa, but the success thereof is affected by the farmer’s management choices. As alternative, service records could be used to derive fertility traits such as services per conception (SPC), calving to first service (CFS) and days open (DO).

Heat stress typically results when the heat load of the air temperature, the associated humidity, and the solar radiation at the time prevents the ability of the cow to effectively dissipate the heat generated from production and metabolism.

Some farmers with herds producing high milk yields extend the lactation cycle to more than 305 days. This is related to reproductive management, which then obviously results in long open days. One argument is that high producing first lactation cows will have higher lifetime milk yields with increasing milk yield per day of lifetime. The question is if this assumption is correct and therefore the authors cited aimed in their study to determine if the effect of duration of the first lactation period has a significant effect on lifetime performance.

Concentrate feeding on pasture- based systems has increased lately, often at a cost as intake of pasture may be partially replaced and therefore the increased milk yield with concentrate supplementation may not attain the intended level. Therefore, the approach should rather be maximizing intake from pasture with concentrate supplementation at a level which does not substitute pasture intake. This may be possible if concentrate supplementation can be partially replaced with a high-quality, fast-degradable pasture such as the forage herb plantain.