The use and abuse of cereals, legumes and crop residues in rations for dairy cattle
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The use and abuse of cereals, legumes and crop residues in rations for dairy cattle
About This Book
The production of animal feed requires a significant amount of water, competes with food production through the allocation of arable land, and restricts organic matter availability for soil health. Once feed is consumed, inefficient conversion then contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution. When choosing feed sources and feeding methods, it is therefore essential to consider context-specific trade-off analyses and optimization strategies, and to take into account the relationships between use of natural resources, feed products and the livestock in question. This chapter will review key elements in trade-off analysis and explore opportunities for and limitations to making better use of existing feed resources and producing more feed biomass of higher fodder quality with reduced environmental foot print.
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Table of contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Current and future levels of animal sourced food (ASF) production
- 3 Dairy ration compositions and current and projected feed demand and supply
- 4 Context specificity of feed demand and supply
- 5 Ration composition and ceilings to milk productivity
- 6 Optimizing the feed–animal interface: ration balancing in intensive and extensive dairy systems
- 7 Summary
- 8 Where to look for further information
- 9 References