Konventionell eller ekologisk mjölkproduktion

The purpose of this study is to give those interested in ecology an analysis of the economic consequences by changing the milk production from conventional to ecological operation. The investigation comprises totally nine farms situated in Dalarna, Sweden. Four of them have fully conventional operation today, three farms use ecological plant cultivation, but do not have a maintenance ration of fodder approved by the control society KRAV, two finally are operated fully ecologically. Three of the conventional farms has a high milkproduction and the fourth has a little lower production than averages. The investigation includes all the costs concerning handling of the fodder on the farm. Simulations of the four farms productions with different production levels show that contribution margin (CM) varies a lot of each farm. On the four farms with conventional operation the CM varies from 889 to 11 786 SEK/cow and year. An important reason for this variation are the size of the farms. With ecological operation with a different milk production and estimate harvests on the four farms, the CM varies from 3 374 to 14 545 SEK/cow and year. At a 20% decrease in crop production, the total decreased production levels are between 20 and 34%, depending on the mineral fertilisers in the conventional operation and an decreased of milk production with 5%, the CM will be between 837 and 12 212 SEK/cow and year. The conclusion is that the farms can afford a considerable decrease of production before the CM is comparable with conventional operation. When both harvest and milkproduction decrease at the same time only two farms out of four will obtain a lower CM than what they should have obtained by conventional operation. An interesting result is that the increase of CM per cow and year by comparison in total is almost equal between the farms. The increase of CM is between 2 463 and 3 522 SEK/cow and year. The economical effects on the CM when the milk production is diminished further has also been investigated. The economical effect can be illustrated by straight line. With three production levels and extrapolation it can be shown that the farms can afford a diminishment of milk production with 12 to 18% before the CM is comparable to that of conventional operation. The reason for, in some case, the increase of CM is partly an increased milk profit from 3,10 to 3,40 SEK/kg, which corresponds to between 2 025 and 2 400 SEK/cow and year. The increased milk production is proportional to the milk yield per cow. The cost for handling of mineral fertilisers and chemical weed-killers by conventional farming has been calculated to 846 SEK/cow and year for the farm with the lowest costs to 1 279 SEK/cow and year for the farm with the highest costs. These costs amount to 2,8% respectively 9,6% of the total handling of fodder. The improvement of the CM obtained on the conventional farms by changing to ecological operation can be compared to those of the completely or partly ecologically operated farms for which the value is between 2 674 and 14 514 SEK/cow and year. For the completely ecologically operated farms the CM is between 2 674 and 6 760 SEK/cow and year. It should be observed that the fann with a CM of only 2 674 SEK/cow and year was recently rebuilt after a fire. The damages include also a number of machines which had to be replaced resulting in further costs. The costs of different fodder on the farms has been studied. It was shown that production of conventional fodder was cheaper with ecological operation than with conventional operation. The production of roughage turned to be more expensive due to decreases in productions levels witch increases the demand of grassland cultivation. The effect of the factors not included in this investigation have been calculated approximately from existing literature. The factors concerned are extra income for low content off spore and ecological meat and extra qualifying days for milk delivery from cows treated. Factors not possible to evaluate are extra incomes for lifecalfs, ecological contribution and extra costs for replacing slit floors. The conclusion is that the investigated farms, with their local conditions, have positive economical margins when changing to ecological operation. The local yields is not unique, the local yields can compares with a quantity of administrative province in Sweden. The results from the four farms after changing are comparable in relation to the fully or partly established farms