A SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR DAIRYING IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Milk production in South Africa regularly comes under pressure as a result of costs and market forces. The question is how effectively dairy producers can recover.  During the pressure event a large number of dairy cows are often slaughtered and the national numbers decrease. Since the average productive life of dairy cows is only about 2.3 lactations, their numbers cannot be increased easily if market forces change. 

The authors of the paper referenced below calculated that the national dairy herd can only increase by 1 - 3% per life cycle through normal population growth, if some literature figures such as 12% mortality from birth to first pregnancy are accepted. Short-term financial changes influencing the milk price or input costs may thus have a drastic and long-term effect on the population dynamics of the national herd. The low surplus numbers imply that selection pressure from the female side is almost non-existent. A second factor is the level and efficiency of milk production. In this context the low participation of only 24% in official milk recording is of concern as the performance of cows in milk recording is substantially better: the difference between cows in milk recording in productive herd life, compared to those that are not, is 43% and in milk production 81%, in favour of the milk recorded animals.

                                                                                                                                                                  The authors further argue that part of the problem is that milk production and processing is divorced in South Africa, sometimes very negatively so, whereas world-wide agricultural production is increasingly practiced in a systems (integrated) relationship. A systems relationship optimizes the entire production chain of the primary production systems, post harvest processes, transport, marketing and value adding. This implies the integrated utilization of genetics/breeding, nutrition, physiology, forage management, product technology and the economics of the entire chain in order to ensure sustainable primary and secondary production enterprises over an extended period of time.

Comment: It would be interesting to see an analysis since 2009. Participation in milk recording currently at about 17% is even lower. Longevity of cows has not improved significantly for the national herd, but there is evidence that milk yield per cow and the efficiency of milk production have improved, brought about by increased use of semen from superior sires, improved nutrition and animal health, and timely reaction to potential problems enabled by increasing use of automated systems and sophisticated computer programmes. Whether the systems approach argued by the authors will ever be an option is debateable.

Reference: 

 M.M. Scholtzand S.M. Grobler, 2009. A systems approach to the South African dairy industry. S. Afr. J. Anim. Sci. 39 (Suppl. 1), 116-120.