Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/66087

The purpose of this study is to calculate the self-supplied forage milk yield-necessary to promote dairy management based on self-supplied forage - from actual survey data, and to study the self-supplied forage milk yield per unit of land area, which is equivalent to land productivity. The self-supplied forage milk yields of eight dairy farmers in Hokkaido were calculated and used to categorize the farmers into three groups according to type of management: (i) dairy management which achieved high self-supplied forage milk yield through efficient use of self-supplied forage; (ii) dairy management which produced average self-supplied forage milk yield but high milk yield per delivered cow(i.e. a cow that has calved at least once) through use of purchased feed concentrates in addition to self-supplied forage; and (iii) dairy management which only produced low milk yield from self-supplied forage. Land is the most fundamental farming resource. In light of this, it is necessary to maximize the use of farmland by shifting to farm management based on self-supplied forage, which is resilient to changes in the external environment and therefore stable. To make this shift possible, efficient land use will be a priority management goal, of which self-supplied forage milk yield is a useful indicator. The case study also revealed that the self-supplied forage milk yield per unit of land area considered adequate for the management of individual dairy farmers differs from the maximum self-supplied forage milk yield that can be produced from land. Individual farmers do not experience management problems if they can earn large incomes even where their self-supplied forage milk yield per unit of land area is low.However, the fact that some farmers within a district experience self-supplied forage shortages and need to purchase feed shows the importance of improving the efficiency of the use of land, a common local resource, beyond individual farm management