Intensive milk production in Pas-de-Calais

Abstract

The presence of animal rearing in intensive cereal crop regions is a source of economic and agronomical complementarities for which we can value the advantages better today. However, these diversified systems have made way for other more specialised systems resulting in the separation of the two sectors, animal rearing and cash-crops. This study analyses the results and changes over six years from a sample of dairy farms in Pas-de-Calais which employed a high productivity dairy-crop system. The institution of milk quotas in 1984 (first monitored year) has profoundly modified the development of farms, which on growing have rediversified their system by increasing cash-crop size as well as milk production (7000 litres per cow for 1300 kg of concentrates, and more than 15000 litres per hectare of forage SFP in 1989/9). Four farm profiles have been identified, differing in structure, the balance between milk production and crops and the resulting production. Milk production obtained often followed that of crops. The evolution of the farms differed according to the possibility of obtaining supplementary quotas or of increasing in size. The largest farms diversified their crops more, although this was not detrimental to herd production. Because of the balance, their level of production and the farmers’ competence, dairy-crop farms are among the best equiped to confront economic constraints in the future, notably the consequences of the PAC reform, whilst at the same time respecting the environment better. However, these complex systems demand a large amount of capital, not least for handing down the farm from one generation to another, and they also demand more than one person working on the farm.