Abstract
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.
Highlights
In Japanese dairy farming, the self-sufficient feed ratio, which was measured by the ratios of domestic and imported feed in the total consumed feed for dairy farming [1], has slowly declined each year at the domestic level, and the current ratio is only 22%, which is a 3.13% decrease over the years2006–2011 [2]
The tillage practices did not have significant effects on dry matter (DM) production after the March harvest, there was a significant difference at the time of the first harvest
Later in March, DM production increased by 44.2% for Italian ryegrass (IR), 38.4%
Summary
In Japanese dairy farming, the self-sufficient feed ratio, which was measured by the ratios of domestic and imported feed in the total consumed feed for dairy farming [1], has slowly declined each year at the domestic level, and the current ratio is only 22%, which is a 3.13% decrease over the years2006–2011 [2]. In Japanese dairy farming, the self-sufficient feed ratio, which was measured by the ratios of domestic and imported feed in the total consumed feed for dairy farming [1], has slowly declined each year at the domestic level, and the current ratio is only 22%, which is a 3.13% decrease over the years. The high level of feed import has increased the production costs for dairy farming in Japan, and threatened the sustainability of rural communities. Due to the forage scarcity on a global scale in the coming decades [3], increasing the self-sufficient ratio (SSR) could help to achieve sustainable dairy farming practices in Japan. Adopting the rice forage system may improve the SSR. Rice forage was one of the major farming systems in the Kanto area in the
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