Dairy production: technical and economic results of lowland farms in the Chlef region of northern Algeria

This paper aims to characterize milk production: it highlights the management methods of these farms.Our work was based both on the collection of information from the agricultural services, regional fund of agricultural mutuality, chamber of agriculture which allowed us to have a global overview of the situation of livestock in the area .This information was enriched and deepened by surveys of dairy farms using a questionnaire previously adapted to the field by a presurvey which enabled us to choose the farms to be studied.The sample studied comprises 34 farms, 6 of which are landless farms.The area varies from 1 to 10 hectares, the cattle population varies from 1 to 20 head of cattle.Cereals and fodder occupy an important place, more than half of the herd is made up of dairy cows.In the majority of farms the animal load is low because of the small agricultural areas used.The marketing of milk to the collection center represents 92%, the rest is intended for self-consumption.The distribution of farms according to milk production per cow milked and per lactation was carried out in three groups: leading, middle and trailing; thus, the milk yield is higher during the winter and spring seasons due to the availability of fodder and the concentration of calvings.In the majority of farms the loads remain low due to the extensive system; as well as for the margins which are low due to the reduced number of producing cows.The results obtained reveal differences in average production resulting in a diversity of the level of milk production between the farms studied.Food remains the limiting factor due to unfavorable climatic conditions which force breeders to resort to buying food from outside; similarly, herd management has a direct influence on production