Evaluation Of The Sustainability Of Large-scale Farming Of Cows

In recent years, as China dairy industry continues to accelerate the process of modernization, large-scale dairy farming becomes an inevitable choice to change growth mode and protect the quality and safety of dairy industry. However, large-scale farming does not simply mean the larger the better. With the expansion of the farming scale, large-scale dairy puts forward higher requirements about breeding and management skills, disease control, qualification of employees, cow manure treatment etc. Therefore in this paper, from the perspective of sustainability, we use the sustainability value method, the three-pillars sustainability index evaluation and the MESMIS sustainability index evaluation to build three sustainability frameworks for large-scale dairy farming. Then we use them to make sustainability evaluation for different farming modes and different farming size, electing the most sustainable farming method and farming size, analyzing the key factors affecting sustainability of large-scale dairy farming, in order to promote sustainable development of the dairy industry in Inner Mongolia.Firstly in this paper-we summarize the situation of large-scale dairy farming in China and Inner Mongolia, take some analysis about the Inner Mongolia survey data. The results showed that the degree of large-scale dairy farming in China has improved obviously, but there is still much room for further improvement. Inner Mongolia survey data show that dairy farms gain higher profitability than dairy plot; large-size dairy farms have the highest profitability, followed by small-size dairy farms, medium-size dairy farms have the lowest profitability. Then, using sustainability value method, the three-pillars sustainability index evaluation and the MESMIS sustainability index evaluation, considering Inner Mongolia practical situation and opinions of experts and employers of dairy industry, we make sustainability evaluation for different farming modes and different farming size based on Inner Mongolia survey data. The results indicates that three sustainability evaluation methods conclude that dairy farms gain higher sustainability than dairy plots; large-size dairy farms gain higher sustainability than medium-size and small-size dairy farms; sustainability valuation method considers the sustainability of small-size dairy farms be higher than medium-size dairy farms. However, three-pillars sustainability index evaluation and the MESMIS sustainability index evaluation considers medium-size dairy farms have higher sustainability than small-size dairy farms. Finally, we use sustainability barriers method to analyze the factors of dairy sustainability.Based on above conclusions, we come up with some policy recommendations: government should promote rational farming size, take more efforts to support manure treatment for large-scale dairy farming, vigorously develop forage planting, encourage management and professional personnel to enter the dairy cow farming industry, in order to improve the breeding skills and management for dairy cow farming.