Gestión integral de explotaciones de vacas nodrizasmejora de la rentabilidad y calidad de vida del ganadero

Abstract

According to the data shown by the "Ministerio de Agriculutra y Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente" and the EU, suckler cows' sector has a low economic productivity if compared with other livestock sectors. The extensive grassland range-farming system of suckler cows has been widely studied and we do not find any technical reason to explain this poor production. Maybe there are two main reasons that could explain poor production: i) there is a lack of business mindset in some farms and, ii) there is a harmful effect of the Common Agricultural Policy (European Union) in which productive efficiency it is not favoured. Despite the vocational feeling linked with the stockman profession, the generational succession is lower than what it would be desired. It has traditionally been assumed that conciliation of personal and professional life is difficult for farmers. This reason along with the low overall profitability of suckling-cows farms, would explain that, in the 21st century, there are few young people willing to become a breeder. In this dissertation, we have used the theoretical frameshift for developing anintegrated management model with two principal objectives: increase the overall profitability of the farm and increase the life quality –and so happiness- of the farm owner. The integrated management model is focused on increasing the herd technical indicators. We are looking for optimizing the number of productive cows according to the labour, matching with the grants and maximizing the productivity – expressed in number of calves-. In addition, we propose to work with uniform animal lots easing the animal handing; our intention is to concentrate the maximum of births decreasing that way the time spent by the farmer. Most of the farm costs are fixed, therefore instead of trying to spare fixed-costs, we try to optimize the productive goods diminishing its impact in the incomes. We control feeding by assessing the body condition according to the productive state and adapting it to the presence of grass on the farm. Regarding the health management, we focus in preventing losses-of-income diseases, such as infections related with the reproduction, diseases inducing calves-death...