| The European dairy industry faces an increasingly uncertain world. There is uncertainty about, for example, subsidy payment levels and compliance conditions, global competition, price variability, consumer demand, carbon footprints, water quality, animal welfare, food safety, and the environment. Farmers can reduce their exposure to these uncertainties by adopting production systems that are financially versatile over a wide range of possible circumstances. In this research project we develop a profit maximizing whole-farm model and employ it to identify financially optimal milk production systems for a typical Northern Ireland farm under varying market, policy and farm family conditions. The systems assessed range from lower yielding New Zealand type... |
