Please don't feed cash crops to livestock but quality fodders. Sustainable Fodder Farming is needed to save the cash crops

Prof. Dr Muhammad Riaz and Dr Jahanzaib Chishti
Institute of Animal and Dairy Sciences, FAH.
University Of Agriculture Faisalabad-380. 

The land required for fodder production depends on the carrying capacity of the land. On an average 4 to 5 dairy animals along with their followers can be maintained on an acre of well fertile agricultural land with assured irrigation facilities. However, the farm productivity would be higher and the cost of milk production is lower if farm grown good quality green fodder is available in plenty. After following the total mixed rations (TMR) based feeding regime, the requirement of land for fodder cultivation can be suitably reduced. The cost of milk production is lower if cows are fed on good quality abundant green fodders and homemade quality concentrate mixture. 

It has been estimated that on an average one person can look after all activities of 10 milking animals along with their followers excluding the work of harvesting of fodder.  

Marketing: The market price of the milk is the major determinant of the profitability of dairy farming. The removal of middlemen in milk marketing and selling the milk directly to consumers is therefore a must for sustainable and viable dairy farming. In fact most of commercial milk producers in the country comprise of this category who market milk readily in cities by themselves. The cornerstone of successful dairying is the elimination of middlemen in the marketing of milk and the producers themselves have to devise their marketing mechanism so that the producers directly sells the milk and value added milk products to the consumers. The price of cow milk is lower than the buffalo milk due to lower milk fat content. There may be lower consumer preference for fresh cow milk. The higher grades of crosses though producing higher milk may not be adapted to all climatic conditions prevailing in the country. The buffalo males after weaning and other unwanted animals also fetch good price as meat animals. It is the need of hour is to promote dairy farming on commercial lines in the country. This would not only provide a quantum jump in the milk production but would also benefits to address the quality issues. Commercial dairy farms to be set up near the urban areas to take advantage of the higher milk prices round the year without involving middlemen or the commercial farms are to be integrated with milk processing units. There would be the lesser transportation charges and lesser will be the loss due to spoilage of highly perishable milk and milk products during storage and transportation. Ideally the big dairy farms should be located nearer to towns but not in towns due to the compliance of environmental protocols and higher costs of inputs especially fodder make them difficult to sustain. Dairy farming units are opened at safe distance from the municipal limits, can earn good returns as they can sell milk at high prices.