Spatial–temporal analysis of the comparative advantages of dairy farming: Taking 18 provinces or municipalities in China as an example

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High cost and low milk yield per dairy cow are current problems mainly faced by dairy farms in China. Thus, optimizing the regional layout and integrating the advantages to enhance the competitiveness of dairy farming in China is necessary. However, existing studies on comparative advantage analysis of dairy breeding have a relatively single perspective. Therefore, comprehensively identifying the advantage area of dairy farming is difficult. This study established a comprehensive evaluation model of the comparative advantages of dairy farming considering basic, technical, economic, and feed resource indexes using linear weighted and entropy weight methods. On this basis, the spatial–temporal analysis of the comprehensive evaluation on comparative advantages of dairy farming from 2013 to 2017 was performed using Geographic Information System(GIS). Finally, the advantage areas of dairy farming were identified. Results demonstrated that the highest average comprehensive evaluation value was 0.6017 in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, followed by 0.5355 in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and 0.1786 in Anhui Province. Furthermore, the advantage areas of dairy farming were identified including Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Beijing Municipality, Heilongjiang Province, Shanghai Municipality, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Tianjin Municipality, Liaoning Province, Shanxi Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous These findings provide references for the spatial layout of dairy farming, spatial allocation of production resources, and sustainable development of animal husbandry.