Constraints to improving small ruminant production on multi-enterprise small holdings in the humid tropics
Small farms in the humid tropics are typically multi-enterprise. A common pool of labour and capital has to satisfy all enterprises, with the result that these are competitive. An overall goal of creating sufficient income for family needs means that enterprise objectives are more likely to be risk-minimizing than profit-maximizing, the balance between enterprices defining farm profitability. Small ruminants (SR) have characteristics suited to their inclusion as an enterprise on such farms. Lower capital cost, labour and feed requirements, simpler housing, greater prolificacy and ease of transportation, compared with large ruminants, means that significantly more minimal-resource smallholders have the option of animal production through SR. However, these conditions limit the extent to which improvement of the SR enterprise will improve the general welfare of the farmer. Improvement strategies will be competitive or non-competitive for limited labour and capital resources, and this difference will influence their adoption by the farmer. There also a) on-farm (management), and b) off-farm (biological) approaches. a) Is limited by the small number of animals that a farmer normally owns, output costs per head rapidly rising if sophisticated technology is required. b) Is dependent on effective multiplication and dissemination services capable of maintaining superior animal germplasm. The greater the number of farm enterprises, the lower the overall benefit through SR improvement as an isolated strategy. Under such conditions only an integrated approach, with appropriate technological development for each enterprise, will yield significant improvements
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Texto biblioteca |
| Language: | eng |
| Published: |
Scottsdale, AZ (EUA)
1982
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