Milk production and feed requirements in dairy systems of developing countries by 2010

Abstract

Increasing dairy production to meet the growing demand for milk in developing countries presents several technical and environmental challenges. Supplying the feed resources required and improving the efficiency of their conversion into a highly nutritive food and valued market commodity is one of them. In order to assess the implications of milk demand on feed requirements there is need to disaggregate the global predictions at least at the level of production systems in each region of the world and combine these predictions with conversion factors of feed to milk appropriate to these systems. Because technological changes are occurring relatively fast, these predictions would be more meaningful if made for the next decade rather than for a 20-year span. This study assesses the needs for feed resources to meet the projected milk production in dairy systems of developing countries by the year 2010.