A New Strategy for Utilizing Rice Forage Production Using a No-Tillage System to Enhance the Self-Sufficient Feed Ratio of Small Scale Dairy Farming in Japan

Sustainability

Windi Al Zahra¹  Takeshi Yasue²  Naomi Asagi²  Yuji Miyaguchi²  Bagus Priyo Purwanto¹ 

[1] Faculty of Animal Sciences, Bogor Agricultural University, Jl. Raya Darmaga Kampus IPB Darmaga Bogor, West Java 16680, Indonesia;College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University, 3-21-1 Ami, Ibaraki 300-0393, Japan

关键词: dairy farming;    forage production;    no-tillage;    rice forage system;    self-sufficient ratio;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su6084975

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Rice forage systems can increase the land use efficiency in paddy fields, improve the self-sufficient feed ratio, and provide environmental benefits for agro-ecosystems. This system often decreased economic benefits compared with those through imported commercial forage feed, particularly in Japan. We observed the productivities of winter forage after rice harvest between conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) in a field experiment. An on-farm evaluation was performed to determine the self-sufficient ratio of feed and forage production costs based on farm evaluation of the dairy farmer and the rice grower, who adopted a rice forage system. The field experiment detected no significant difference in forage production and quality between CT and NT after rice harvest. However, the production cost was dramatically decreased by 28.1% in NT compared with CT. The self-sufficient ratio was 5.4% higher when dairy farmers adopted the rice forage system compared with those using the current management system. Therefore, this study demonstrated the positive benefits for dairy farmers and rice growers in Japan when adopting a rice forage system with NT, which could improve the self-sufficient feed ratio and reduce production costs.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.