Author(s)

Raquel Breitenbach

Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS), Sertão, Brazil.

The objective of this research was to survey the productivity, costs, agricultural income and economic viability of Semi-Confined and confined milk production systems in Free-Stall and Compost Barn in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. In order to perform the research, four milk production units were selected in each of the three systems studied. Compared to the others, the Semi-Confined system had greater return of capital invested per year, as well as higher agricultural income per animal and per area, while the confined system in Compost Barn had higher farm incomes per man work unit and total farm incomes due to greater productive scale of properties. The Free-Stall system had the worst economic results. It was not possible to define an ideal system for the state, since the specificities of each property should be analyzed for choosing the system, especially the availability of the factors of production land, capital and labor.

Costs, Decision-Making, Rural Management, Milk

Breitenbach, R. (2018) Economic Viability of Semi-Confined and Confined Milk Production Systems in Free-Stall and Compost Barn. Food and Nutrition Sciences, 9, 609-618. doi: 10.4236/fns.2018.95046.