Milk production systems in mountainous regions : recent developments and possible adpatations

Abstract

The development of milk production systems in the mountainous regions, already severely handicapped by natural conditions which limit production and which are costly, has been disrupted due to the introduction of production quotas in 1984. In the Haute-Loire mountains, dairy production is relatively recent. It developed from calf with mother veal production, and many farms still bear the mark of this. Thus, the quotas affected many farms in which the change in direction was incomplete. This study involved 30 such farms, « having a future », and shows the changes which occurred after the installation of quotas. The effects during the first three years were masked due to limitations in productions caused by the climate and by the giving of supplementary quotas. However, the favourable conditions of the fourth campaign resulted in a large increase in milk production and farmers had to take measures to adjust this. The creation of a typology of the farms (« profils d’exploitation ») shows differentiated adaptations. Certain farms have been specialised in dairy production for a long time, using intensive farming of Holstein-Friesian cows. This method requires a large amount of technical practices as well as foodstuffs, and is very sensitive to quotas. Other farms, having more land, have kept, together with Montbeliards cows which give a good yield, milk + crossed calves sold at one month. This method is, without doubt, better adapted to the changes which many young farmers, who have kept to traditional farming methods, must make. Farms which have adopted modern farming techniques too quickly demonstrate the necessity, moreso in the mountains than on the plains, that heavy investment should be well planned and spread out over a time period. It is important to preserve a certain diversification for mountain dairy production, and to offer alongside the methods based on intensive farming, changes taking mixed systems into account together with moderated intensification, more easily envisaged in the future with a gradual growth in farm size.