Effect of agro-ecological zone on the dairy cattle production system in East Java

L Rahardjo, S Ifar*, S Chuzaemi* and B A Nugroho*

Faculty of Animal Husbandry Islamic University of Malang, Malang, Indonesia
liliek_unisma@ymail.com
* Faculty of Animal Husbandry Brawijaya University, Malang, Indonesia

Abstract

This study aimed at describing the effect of ago-ecological zone (AEZ) on the dairy cattle production system, especially related to feed intake, milk poduction, and income over feed cost.  

Dairy cattle in East Java have been well developed in upland to lowland areas, and the owners of the animal husbandry are members of dairy cooperatives. The location of the dairy cooperatives can be clustered into 4 AEZ; namely old-age cooperatives in uplands (AEZ-I), old-age cooperatives in middle-lands (AEZ-II), old-age cooperatives in lowlands (AEZ-III) and young-age cooperatives in lowlands (AEZ-IV). 

The conclusion of this study indicates that: (1) Cooperatives in AEZ-I have good or established management and farmers in AEZ-IV have good human resource; (2) AEZ affects feed intake, milk production, and income over feed cost; and (3) the highest income over feed costs is in AEZ-I, but it is not different with the income over feed cost in AEZ-IV, each of which is Rp 21,003 h/d and Rp 20,234 h/d. 

Key words: AEZ, feed intake, milk production, income over feed cost

Introduction

Statistical data shows that there are about 597 thousand heads of dairy cattle in Indonesia and mostly are located in the Island of Java, that is East Java, Central Java, West Java, Yogyakarta, and Jakarta, each of which accounts for 34.63%, 32.87%, 28.71%, 1.50%, and 0.90% (Anonymous 2011).  The cattle have been well developed, but the milk they produce is still considered low, which is only 925 thousand tons per year (Anonymous 2011).

The cattle are reared by smallholder farmers in different dairy cattle areas. These farmers, locally, develop dairy cooperative that collect the milk produced and sell the milk to processing industries. Beside, the cooperatives also provide necessary production inputs such as concentrate feeds. Reported by GKSI (2009), about 51 dairy farmer cooperatives exist in various places in East Java.

The spread of dairy cattle in East Java started from the importation of Holstein Friesian dairy cattle by the Dutch during the 19^th century to fulfill their demand of milk. During the 1970s, Indonesian Goverment imported large numbers of the same breed of dairy cattle to increase national milk production and to improve farmers’ income. By dairying, in every ten days, farmers received cash for the milk they sold to the local milk cooperatives. As it provided regular income, dairying became an attractive activity for the smallholder farmers. At present, Agroecological Zone (AEZ) for dairy cattle areas can be found along the vertical transect of East Java, from upland to the lowland areas.

Initially, dairy cattle areas were developed in the uplands of East Java where climatic factors i.e. temperature and humidity was similar to the cattle’s origin. Blade and Bade (1991) state that environmental temperature of 15-21^oC with humidity of about 55% is the most suitable place for dairy cattle. Suitability to climate has always been a critical consideration of policy makers in developing dairy cattle industry in East Java. The concept of comfort zone for dairy cattle is also taught to students who learn about animal husbandry at Indonesians’ higher learning institutions. However, the concept is not in accordance with field circumstances. How such discrepancies exist is worth to be revealed.

Feed is a major component in the production system of dairy farm business. Forage is a staple food for the animal; it may originate from agricultural land (elephant grass and maize stalks), communal land (native grass) and residual/agricultural waste (rice straw). Tropical areas generally have lower nutritional quality compared to temperate regions, therefore shortage of forage nutrients need to be substituted with concentrate feed.

Farmers generally are members of dairy cooperatives, so the need of concentrate feed can be fulfilled by the cooperative. However, given the fact that not only lactating cows need the concentrate feed, but also calves, heifers, adult females and males as well as to substitute forage shortage during the dry season or forage difficulty, the cost of concentrate feed can be so expensive; thus, to reduce the cost, some farmers substitute the concentrate feed with other types of feed that are cheaper.

The substitution feed is a by-product or waste from the production of food crops, plantation crops, food industry, and plantation from various locations in the East Java region (rice bran, tofu waste, cassava waste) and from outside the region of East Java (soy meals and coconut waste), as well as outside the country or imported (pollard). Then, of course, the existence of the feed ingredients in terms of quality, quantity, and price continuity is always important for the AEZs in East Java region, outside the region, and outside the country or imported.

The problems faced by farmers to determine the nutrient content of livestock feed as needed by cattle are the ones dealing with the quality, quantity, continuity, and price of the substitution feed which is always fluctuating. This is due to differences in the stages of processes that farmers do to obtain the substitution feed in each AEZ; and the problems have become more intensified when involving AEZs across areas, across regions, and across countries.  

In addition, most farmers have low level of education and of knowledge about nutrition feed making it more difficult to construct a minimum quality diets according to the nutritional needs of the cattle to produce normally.

Objectives

• The objective of this study was to analyze the effect of AEZ on the production system; especially feed intake, milk production, and income over feed cost on dairy farm business.

Material and methods

Study area

Determination of AEZ in this study was based on the age of the cooperatives and altitude. Each cooperative was grouped into 2 classes based on the cooperative age:

• Young-age cooperatives (10-25 years)

• Old-age cooperatives (≥ 25 years)

According to Rahardjo (2012), the development of a cooperative consists of:  at the time of setting up the management (young-age cooperatives) and at the time the management of cooperatives become more solid or better (old-age cooperatives).

Further, the altitude of the areas is classified based on their position from the sea level, this is related to the requirement of the life of a plant or animal which is connected to the temperature (Ritung et al 2007). The altitude of a specific area in respect to the life of plant or animal has no definite limitation, there will only be an adjustment to the temperature of a tropical area, that is lower or cooler in a upland areas and the vice versa. The altitude area of each cooperative location is as follows:

• Lowland (± ≤ 600 meters)

• Middleland (± 600 meters - ≤ 1,200 meters)

• Upland (± ≤ 1,200 meters)

Further, the development of a dairy cooperative based on the age of the cooperative and altitude can be seen in Table 1.

Based on the information in Table 1, we can see that young-age cooperatives exist only in lowland, and thus there are only four AEZs in East Java:

• AEZ- I   = old-age cooperatives in uplands

• AEZ- II  = old-age cooperatives in middle lands

• AEZ-III = old-age cooperatives in lowlands

• AEZ-IV = young-age cooperatives in lowlands

Using a random sampling method, study areas were generated. The characteristics of the study areas can be seen in Table 2.

Farmer selection

Selection of dairy farmers (Photo 1) in each AEZ was done by simple random sampling from a number of farmers in the village. The villages were chosen based on the following considerations:

• The main livelihood of the population in general is dairy farmers.

• Easy access to information.

• Provision of infrastructure is relatively easier compared to other locations or villages in other areas.

• Livestock density is relatively high compared to other locations or villages, but is still possible to be developed.

Data collection

Data on the description of farmers were obtained from questionnaires. The number of farmers becoming respondents in AEZ-I,  AEZ-II,  AEZ-III and AEZ-IV was 245, 16, 96 and 27. While data on feed intake, milk production, and income over feed costs were obtained from on-farm observations in each AEZ from as many as 10 farmers.

Feed intake (intake of Dry Matter = DM and Crude Protein = CP) on feed concentrates produced by cooperatives, feed substitutes, and forage was based on metabolic body weight (body weight^0.75). Measurement of body weight was done using electronic scales livestock of Rudweight brand, which has four-ton capacity with sensitivity of 0.5 kg (Photo 2). Weighing forage was done using hanging scales with a capacity of 25 kg and a sensitivity of 0.2 kg (Photo 3). As for artificial concentrate feed produced by cooperatives and feed substitute was done using sit scales, with the capacity of 15 kg and sensitivity of 0.1 kg (Photo 4). The calculation of the nutrient content of the feed (DM and CP) was based on proximate analysis (AOAC 1995).

Data on milk quantity was based on the amount of milk production for 305 days (Photo 5), and the quality of the milk (fat content and density) based on the results of Lactoscan MCC50.

Income over feed cost was calculated based on the differences between the selling price of milk and feed costs.

Statistical analysis

The data obtained from the afore-presented procedure was then analyzed using descriptive statistics method, Analysis of Variance (Anova), and Least Significant Difference (Steel and Torrie 1991) employing SPSS version 13.0.

Results and Discussion

Spatial distribution of dairy cattle area

Data from GKSI (2009) show that there are 51 dairy cooperatives in East Java; located in 10 districs i.e. Tulungagung, Blitar, Kediri, Jombang, Gresik, Mojokerto, Pasuruan, Probolinggo, Lumajang and Malang. Their spatial distribution is shown in Figure 1.

These districts, except of Gresik, comprise lowland and upland areas. This is related with the ecology of Java where chain of mountains exists along the middle of the island from West to East in paralel with limestone hills along the northern and southern coasts (Palte 1989).

Taking this into account, the distribution of the dairy cattle areas along the vertical transect of East Java can be depicted as that in Figure 2 together with the existed number of dairy cooperatives and dairy cattle population. 

Figure 2: Vertical transects of cooperative and dairy cattle population in East Java (Rahardjo 2012)

Data in Figure 2 shows population of dairy cattle in upland, middleland, and lowland areas. Each of it is 37.34%, 17.83%, and 44.83%. It identifies those smallholder dairy cattle that are ideally in uplands, can also grow well in middleland and lowland.

Development of dairy cattle business has never been far without government support and policy. In 1977 to 2000, there was improvement of cooperation number specialized in milk production. This improvement was equivalent with the development of dairy cattle farmer. After 2000, the number of milk production cooperatives is relatively in constant level (Rahardjo 2012).

AEZ setting

Regarding to complexity of the problem occurred in describing different characteristic of each type in AEZ, the description on the process and development of smallholder dairy cattle in this study was only focused in farmers, feed, production, and income over feed cost.

Description of farmers

Performance of farmers in this study was seen from the total number of dairy cattle owned and their educational degree (Table 3 and 4).

Data in Table 3 show that farmers having above 9 dairy cattle were relatively low except in AEZ- IV (44.44%), while in the other areas were 7.35%  (AEZ-I), 12.50%  (AEZ-II) and 8.33% (AEZ-III). Having less than 10 dairy cattle is claimed as smallholder dairy cattle (Yusdja 2005). The number of cattle owned has a profound and positive impact on household income (Sutanto 2007). Dairy farm business can benefit with a minimum of 6 cattle owned, although the level of efficiency can be achieved with 2 cattle with an average of milk production of 15 l/h/d (Putranto 2006).

Table 4 shows that the majority of farmers held elementary education degree; they were 74.69% (AEZ-I), 62.50% (AEZ-II), 89.59% (AEZ-III) and 59.26% (AEZ-IV).

Concerning with the relatively small size of the dairy cattle and low educational degree, it makes the farmers difficult to make innovation. Smallholder dairy cattle are characterized by the traditional taking care of the dairy cattle leading into low input and low output (Talib et al 2001). The process and development of dairy cattle business depends much on cooperatives.  According to Jarmadi and Hidayati (2005), the aim of the dairy cooperatives is to provide production facilities, to accommodate dairy production, and to distribute the dairy products.

Farmers in AEZ-IV had the best human resources, i.e. the number of farmers who graduated from secondary school level was 14.81% and graduated from university was 7.14 %.

Feed intake

Farmers normally feed their dairy cattle with the concentrate feed produced by the cooperatives, feed substitute, and forage as explained in Table 5a.

Farmers use the concentrate feed produced by cooperative because of the dependence between the dairy farmers and cooperatives. Farmers generally only have the capital, but with little knowledge and limited access, they are highly dependent on the existing dairy cooperatives in each AEZ in the process and production system, particularly in providing concentrate feed, production, and marketing of milk.

The cooperatives sell the concentrate feed to farmers under a general selling system of 2 : 1, meaning that when famers sell 2 liters of the milk their cattle produce, they are required to purchase the artificial concentrate feed as much as 1 kg. However, this pattern is not always applied by the cooperatives; so many farmers, in order to fulfill the nutrient content needed by their dairy cattle, substitute the concentrate feed with other forms of feed that are cheaper in price (Rahardjo 2012). Some considerations are taken by farmers in the production system in each AEZ, especially on the procurement of feed (concentrate feed produced by cooperatives, feed substitute, and forage), preparation of feed and short-term economic considerations in feeding cattle (instant benefit) from the total production as a whole.

When the body weight of lactating cows in AEZ-I, AEZ-II, AEZ-III and AEZ-IV are 416.30  ± 14.83 kg, 416.28 ±  35.09 kg, 382.80 ± 21.30 and 403.70 ± 22.94 kg, based on the data presented in Table 5, the obtained DM intake in AEZ-I, AEZ-II, AEZ-III and AEZ-IV each of which is 3.36%, 2.57%, 2.31% and 3.10%  of the body weight. The total DM intake is very diverse and is in accordance with the conditions of the cattle, where the need for DM ranges between 2-4 % of the body weight (NRC 2001).

AEZ factors affect the total DM intake (Table 5b and Figure 3). The highest total DM intake was in AEZ-I, but this was not so much different from the total DM intake in AEZ-IV. Differences in AEZ also lead to differences in concentrate feed, feed substitutes, and forage utilization by farmers.

The data in Figure 4 shows that the percentage of DM intake of feed substitutes in AEZ-IV (39.30%) is higher than in AEZ-I (27.18%). Based on the suitability of land, AEZ-IV is more appropriate than AEZ-I for the cultivation of food crops/industrial/plantation whose by-products/waste can be used as feed substitutes, especially rice bran and cassava waste (Las et al 1990,  Anonymous 1993, Ritung et al 2007).

DM intake of feed concentrates produced by cooperatives was highest in AEZ-I. This suggests that the cooperatives in AEZ-I have good management, especially in regard to strategy and feed management. According to Rahardjo (2012), one of the functions and roles of dairy cooperatives is to provide concentrate feed, so farmers’ trust to cooperatives can be seen by the number of concentrate feed distributed to them.

The higher DM intake of feed concentrates produced by cooperatives in AEZ-I compared to the DM intake of feed concentrates produced by cooperatives in AEZ-II  and AEZ-III indicates that cooperative age does not always correlate with the established and well management of the cooperatives.

The highest total CP intake was in AEZ-IV, but this was not so much different from the total DM intake in AEZ-I. The high total CP intake in AEZ-I was due to the high CP intake of concentrate produced by cooperatives. Meanwhile, the high total CP intake in AEZ-IV was due to the high CP intake of feed substitutes (Figure 5 and 6).

Production and income over feed cost

The AEZ factor affects milk yields and income over feed cost (Table 6). The highest milk production was from AEZ-I, but this was not so much different from the total milk production in AEZ-IV (Table 6 and Figure 7). Milk production correlates with protein content of the feed; so as to obtain high milk production, high protein content is needed as well. This condition can be obtained when human resources in the AEZ have sufficient knowledge on feed nutrients.
 

The high production of milk in AEZ-I because of better support from the dairy cooperative, especially in the procurement of feed concentrate. This is indicated by the high number of farmers using feed concentrate produced by cooperatives (Table 5a). Although AEZ-IV is located in lowlands that are considered not suitable for dairy cattle, dairy cattle is growing quite well because feed is made to available in adequate amount and is supported with good human resources (Table 4). Thus, milk production in AEZ-IV can be relatively the same with the one in AEZ-I.

The long duration of the development of the dairy cattle business in an AEZ does not always guarantee that farmers in that particular AEZ have better experience and knowledge related to production system and management. Similarly, the old-age of a dairy cooperative does not guarantee that the dairy cooperative has good and well established management.
 

As a comparison is the research by Chinogaramombe et al (2008) in Zimbabwe in areas with altitude of 1,300 mm, temperature of 20 - 30°C, half dry areas (rainfall 400-600 mm/year ). Although the dominant crop in the area is calophospermum mopane and acacia species, many grass species of hiparrhenia and aristida, and many leftover food crops (agro-industry), farmers in the region are categorized as poor farmers with limited experience and knowledge on animal husbandry, own only 6-10 cattle (in average 5 lactating cows), they can only produce about 10 kg of milk/farmer/day.

Income over feed cost is one way to determine the economic efficiency in the field of animal husbandry, and is calculated based on the difference between the selling prices of milk to feed cost incurred to produce the milk. Income over feed cost was highest in AEZ-I, but was not different with the one in AEZ-IV (Table 6 and Figure 8).

AEZ-IV has a better potential to develop into dairy cattle business because its topography (slope) is wider, making it easier and cheaper in the utilization of land and erosion control (Ritung et al 2007). The temperature constraints in AEZ-IV can be overcome by building dairy cowshed in accordance with the tropical climate (Siregar and Kusnadi 2004).

Conclusions

• Smallholder dairy cattle in East Java are generally a member of cooperative. Although ideally located in uplands, there is possibility of dairy cattle to produce optimally in all AEZ as long as there is enough feed.

  
  

• Dairy cooperatives in AEZ -I have a good/established management.

  
  

• Farmers in AEZ-IV had the best human resources, i.e. the number of farmers who graduated from secondary school level was 14.81% and graduated from university was 7.14%.

  
  

• AEZ affects feed intake, milk production, and income over feed cost.

  
  

• The highest income over feed costs is in AEZ-I, which was not so much different from AEZ-IV; each of which was Rp 21,003 h/d and Rp 20,234 h/d .

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the support financed from Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Culture of Republic of Indonesia.

References

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Received 6 November 2013; Accepted 7 March 2014; Published 5 April 2014

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