Introduction

• Assessing dairy production may be viewed across a number of baselines:
  • Volume milk production vs milk solids in different systems.
  • Financial performance as all income after total costs of production broken down into variable and fixed costs are accounted for.
  • Sustainable milk production as a function of environmental impacts, accounting for impacts such as greenhouse gases (GHG) using lifecycle analysis (LCA) and marginal abatement cost curves (MACC).
• Key performance indicators of dairy production include measures of liquid and solids over denominators of time, eg milk kg/cow/year .

Production aspects of different systems - liquid milk vs solids

Economic aspects of different systems

Sustainable milk production

Summary

Further Reading

Publications

Refereed Papers

• Recent references from PubMed and VetMedResource.
• Statham J M E, Green M, Husband J, Huxley J N (2017) Climate change & cattle farming. In Practice BMJ; January 2017.
• ADAS (2015) Study to model the impact of controlling endemic cattle diseases and conditions on national cattle productivity, agricultural performance and greenhouse gas emissions. randd.defra.gov.uk. Accessed December 5, 2016.
• Broom D M, Galindo F A & Murgueitio E (2013) Sustainable, efficient livestock production with high biodiversity and good welfare for animals. Proceedings of the Royal Society B PubMed doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2025.
• Bell M J, Wall E, Russell G, Morgan C & Simm G (2010) Effect of breeding for milk yield, diet and management on enteric methane emissions from dairy cows. Animal Production Science 50, 817-826.
• FAO (2010) Greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy sector: a life cycle assessment. www.fao.org. Accessed December 5, 2016.
• FAO (2006) Livestock’s long shadow: environmental issues and options. ftp://ftp.fao.org. Accessed December 5, 2016.

Other sources of information

• National Milk Records (NMR) (2018) www.nmr.co.uk/ (accessed 13/08/18) and Herd Companion www.herdcompanion.co.uk/ (accessed 13/08/18).
• Statham J M E (2017) Dairy Herd Health Management: An Overview. In: Achieving Sustainable Production of Milk Vol.3: Dairy herd management & welfare (ed Prof J Webster). Burleigh Dodds Press, Chapter 23.
• AHDB (2017a) AHDB Dairy: dairy.ahdb.org.uk.
• AHDB Evidence Report (2017b) AHDB Dairy: dairy.ahdb.org.uk.
• Hayton A & Bazeley K (2007) Practical Cattle Farming. Pub Crowood Press. ISBN 978 186126 975 1.