How German dairy farmers perceive advantages and disadvantages of grazing and how it relates to their milk production systems

Abstract

Dairy farming in Europe and in Germany in particular, is characterized by a growing trend towards all-year-housing. Along with that the proportion of grass products as sources of energy for dairy cows is decreasing. On the other hand, society and politics strongly advocate grazing resulting in the introduction of pasture-milk programs. Little is known of the dairy farmers’ perception of grazing and it is not clear what role their attitude towards grazing plays in their decision-making and how this is related to farm structure. To investigate these questions, we conducted a survey with face-to-face interviews on three types of German dairy farms: i.) grazing farms (n = 17), ii) exercise-pasture farms (n = 19), and iii) all-year-housing farms (n = 18). On grazing farms, pasture contributes significantly to the ration of the cows (0.2 ha grassland with 0.1 ha as pasture per cow and year; at least 6 hours of grazing on 120 days per year). Exercise-pasture farms offer their cows a much more restricted access to rather small pastures. All-year-housing farms have no grazing for dairy at all but feed their cows grass silage and hay.Farmers from grazing farms expressed a high agreement with the positive aspects of grazing (low fodder costs, low labor input, benefits for animal health and fertility), while the all-year-housing farmers were more aware of the challenges and disadvantages of grazing and expressed a high agreement with its potential negative aspects (reduced milk yield, unsuitability for large herds, insufficient access of the herd to the pastures). The exercise-pasture farmers appreciated the advantages of better fertility and better animal health and saw fewer disadvantages of grazing than the all-year-housing farmers. Utilization of grass products also differed among the three groups: grass and grass silage made up 47% of the ration on grazing farms while on exercise-pasture farms and on all-year-housing farms, grass products amounted to only 28% and 23% of the ration, respectively. The grazing farms had fewer cows (n = 69) and smaller milk yields (8,270 kg milk per cow/year) than the exercise-pasture farms (n = 109; 9,524 kg milk per cow/year) and all-year-housing farms (n = 138; 9,404 kg milk per cow/year).We also discuss the influence of the human tendency to avoid cognitive dissonance on farmers’ responses. We conclude that in developing concepts to promote grazing, the differing attitudes and perceptions of dairy farmers and the interaction with differing farm structures need to be considered.