Economics of Extensive Livestock Flashcards
1
Q
A
- 26%
- of all the land that doesn’t have ice pretty much!
2
Q
A
- 33% (a third)
3
Q
Facts between Livestock and Land
A
4
Q
Extensive Livestock Systems
A
- don’t need to put a lot of labor (input) into them
- but in return they have low outputs
5
Q
A
- plenty of grass
- but also very large grass - issue because these animals may have very little benefit from the soil due to lack of exposure to grass
6
Q
A
- only have bushes
- hard to do anything, hard to grow crops
- these animals in this kind of system are more in survival mode
7
Q
Extensive Livestock and Resources
A
- requirement to have forage and water
- may have competition for this by using land for something else or inheriting it for example and splitting up parts of land with vital resources
- ex: lambing season requires a lot of labor
8
Q
Resource Demand
A
- cattle are still fed with brewers grains quite often
9
Q
Extensive Livestock System and Underutilised Systems
A
10
Q
A
- these animals in ecuador can still meet nutritional needs if given the proper feed and nutrition, but just will grow at a slower rate
11
Q
Resource Allocation - Hill areas, Upland areas, lowland areas
A
- Hill areas- difficult to have any crop, really can only have sheep
- Lowland: good climate, good grass, easy to have crop and have farm animals
12
Q
A
13
Q
A
- hills and upland areas basically
14
Q
A
15
Q
A
- good grass and nutrition for animal
16
Q
A
17
Q
A
18
Q
A
19
Q
Niches and Livestock Systems
A
20
Q
A
- Farms will only spend about 5-7% of available finances on veterinary services!
21
Q
A
- feed/forage and labor are about 40%
- cost towards vets is still quite low
22
Q
A
- If animals are not fed well, they will not be efficient eaters
- need labor to look over these animals
- even though vets are a small amount of the cost, they make a HUGE impact with the little bit they do and advice they give for the farm
23
Q
Things to Remember about Cost Structure
(vet services and Medicines)
A
24
Q
Cost Structure - Advice
A
25
Cost Structure - Awareness of Business
26
Forage
* there is a plateau in growth
* nutritional value starts to decrease after the peak growth ( the growth slows)
* want to make sure to time the consumption of grass ideally for the farmer
27
* in winter, there is not sufficient grass, they will not be able to grow and often lose weight
* farmers will try and minimize that by giving supplementation
* this is why we have srping lambing systems (when the grass is good!)
28
Management of Grazing
* you just need to be aware of this for each farm as it affects animal health
* store cattle/lambs: not able to gain weight (maybe in bad region) so we need to keep them extra amount of days to get them to gain weight
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Marketing Links
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Breeds for wool and finishing
* movements from pure breeds to more mixing
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Water
* compare required water for each animal
33
* need to know how to catch and contain all this water
* getting difficult with climate change- this catching system becomes quite critical!
34
What goes into the **Gross Margin**
* variable costs are what are short term changes (change in feed, etc.)
* fixed costs are those that cannot change
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variable costs can include costs of managing the land
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* 37 gbp per ewe
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* labor is a fixed cost, as is rent, infrastructure
* not taking these in, farmers are on average taking in 37gbp per ewe
* the herd size varies!
* You need to have a very large herd size to even have enough income to satisfy the farmers needs let alone other costs
38
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* will have these tables for every year
* help you prepare farmers for changes in costs
* there will be varied costs depending on the time of year and this will as a result change the worth of the individual animals (weight loss/gain)
* Brexit will have a huge effect on the exhange rate
40
The impact of a Health Problem
* Need to look at diseases
* Want to bring the curve as high as possible
* You will still get losses with some control
41
Economic Logic for Investment
* want to target the AVOIDABLE losses
42
Intervention and Avoidable Losses
* avoidable losses over the years can get bigger
* ex: worm burden
43
Losses due to worm burden
* weight they cen get if they are worm free v. if the avoidable loss due to worm burden is not taken out
44
Losses from Acute Problems
45
* intensive systems have higher demand for vet intervention (especially if they are more prone to diseases)
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