An economic assessment of forage options to improve the profitability of smallholder beef cattle enterprises in the Red Soils region of China
N. D. MacLeod A D , S. Wen B and M. Hu CA CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, Qld 4067, Australia.
B Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Red Soils Experiment Station, Wenfushi 426182, People’s Republic of China.
C Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, People’s Republic of China.
D Corresponding author. Email: neil.macleod@csiro.au
Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 47(11) 1284-1296 https://doi.org/10.1071/EA06052
Submitted: 6 February 2006 Accepted: 14 March 2007 Published: 18 October 2007
Abstract
Beef cattle numbers in the People’s Republic of China have expanded dramatically in the past two decades. Most of this enlarged herd is carried as small numbers of animals on smallholder farms whose production focus has traditionally been on cropping, with very limited emphasis on the planting and use of forages and nutritious feed supplements. Limited plantings of specialised forages combined with a poor knowledge of appropriate feeding and husbandry practices for beef cattle by smallholder farmers remains a serious challenge to establishing genuinely sustainable beef enterprises for this sector. Public policy to further raise the level of beef cattle production on smallholder farms is focussing on encouraging the planting and use of new forage species and also on promoting research and extension for improved feeding practices that are centred on these forage species.
The paper presents some results from the economic component of an Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) project that is exploring options for integrating the planting and feeding of improved forages within existing smallholder farming systems in the Red Soils region of south-central China. An economic model is used to examine these options using a synthetic case example of a smallholder farm enterprise located in Hunan Province. The impact of changing values for several critical profit drivers are reviewed along with the implications of these findings for the management of cattle feeding systems on smallholder farms in the Red Soils region. The model results identify the potential for cattle rearing activities based on producing and feeding improved forages to increase the economic welfare of smallholder households. Where cattle rearing is based on diets of poor quality feedstuffs, economic returns are negative, although positive net cash incomes may support continued commitment of resources to this activity in the short-term.
Acknowledgements
The body of work that includes the material discussed in this paper was funded by the Australian Centre for Agricultural Research as ACIAR project AS/98/35 – Ruminant production in the Red Soils region of southern China and northern Australia. The assistance of Mr Xie Wenfeng and Ms Li Lijang, students at Jiangxi Agricultural University, and Professor Chang Songhua, Hunan Agricultural University, with the collation of economic data for smallholder farms in Jiangxi and Hunan Provinces on which the economic model was developed is gratefully acknowledged.
Casanova A,
MacLeod D, Scott J
(1997) Forage management for the red soils of China. Partners in Research and Development [ACIAR: Canberra] 10, 18–23.
[Verified 11 September 2007]
1 ACIAR projects PN 89/25, LWR1/93/03, and LWR1/96/172.
2 ACIAR project AS2/98/35
3 The survey of this village was conducted in conjunction with a project headed by Professor Chang Songhua, Hunan Agricultural University, to collect baseline production data on beef raising activities in five counties in Hunan Province, including Dao County, where cattle production was being actively promoted. A census was taken of all households in selected villages in each of the five counties.
4 Under the agriculture reform programs initiated by the national government from ~1978 to 1983 that led to the abandonment of large state-controlled collective farms as the basic production enterprise, smallholder households are typically allocated individual parcels of land for which a lease payment is made to the state. At the time of the study, the average fee for leased land in Hunan Province was approximately 80 yuan per mu per annum.
5 AU$1 is approximately equivalent to 6.3 yuan renminbi, June 2005.
