Feeding Systems with Legumes to Intensify Dairy Farms - cgiar

with a dry season between May and August. Mean annual temperature was
22 ˚C. The survey covered 52 producers; interviews were informal, but
structured around a series of themes. Data were tabulated and analyzed
each day after field visits. Interview themes for the following day were
modified daily based on findings of the previous day. The research team
spent the last day of the intensive 4-day diagnostic survey process to draw
conclusions and discuss implications for future needs of research and
collaboration.
Results
Cattle numbers were determined on 18 farms in Nuevo Cajamarca and
22 farms in Soritor. On the farms in Nuevo Cajamarca, the mean herd size
was 32 animals, ranging between 6 and 70. This number included 15 cows,
of which nine were being milked (Table 1). The ratio of cows to herd size and
milking cows to dry cows were typical of the study area.
Herd size varied. In Soritor and Nuevo Cajamarca, 30% of the producers
interviewed had up to 15 head of cattle (13 on average), 53% had between
16 and 49 (31 on average), and 18% had 50 or more head (62 on average).
The ratio of small-, medium-, and large-scale operations appeared be
characteristic of the whole area visited. Taking Soritor (where herd size
averaged 26 head) as example, producers reported, on average, 8 births
(ranging between 2 and 21), 2 accidental or disease-related deaths (ranging
between 0 and 10), and five sales during the year immediately before
(ranging between 0 and17) (Table 1).
Table 1. Livestock inventory in Nuevo Cajamarca and Soritor (Alto Mayo,
Peru).
Cattle inventory
Total
Categories
Cows
Milking cows
Bulls
Births
Deaths
Sales
Nuevo Cajamarca Soritor
Average Range Average Range
32
15
9
1.4
11
1.5
4
6-70
2-60
0-30
0-5
0-30
0-4
0.14
109
26
11
4
1.3
8
2
5
5-65
3-27
0-17
0-3
2-21
0-10
0-17