Stock wintering systems in Southland

Abstract

During the past fifteen years major, changes in the management of livestock have occurred in Southland. The area of forage crops for wintering stock has greatly decreased with the development of low cost wintering systems. The change in emphasis from crop to grass wintering of livestock may have affected production per animal and per hectare. Several farming systems are explored in this study and linear programming is used to develop an optimal farming system. Farm areas are analysed to expose existing resource restrictions and to define representative farm input levels for use in the linear programme. These representative farms were developed for the Gore and Invercargill areas. Chapter I deals with livestock management practices in Southland, defines the representative farms arid details farm production trends in Southland. Chapter II reviews the literature on grazing dynamics of pasture and forage crops and discusses the feed supply and demand alternatives used in the study. In Chapter III the method of costing the feed alternatives is outlined. The linear programming matrix is developed and critical areas delineated. Chapter IV gives detailed results of the study and discusses the relevance of the results. Chapter V summarizes the inputs required and levels of production achieved under the optimal farming system and outlines the implications for Southland.