Features and Possibilities for Optimizing Farm Milk Production in Serbia

Abstract

Milk production in Serbia is organized on farms of different capacities that mutually vary in relation to agro-ecological, zootechnical and production conditions. The aim of this paper is to present a part of the most important results that have been obtained so far, in the implementation of the project “Optimization of technological procedures and zootehnical resources on farms with the goal to upgrade sustainability of milk production”. The results that are presented relate to the most important features of farm cow milk production in Serbia, as well as the possibility for optimization of the most important technological procedures and zootechnical resources on which milk production is based. The structure of dairy farms in Serbia, in terms of size and number of animals, is not satisfactory, because the predominated types are small and medium scale farms. However, there are numerous possibilities for optimization of farm and zootechnical conditions and resources in order to improve the sustainability of milk production. These possibilities can be divided into optimizing selection and breeding methods, optimizing nutrition manners and physical form of forage and complete meals in the nutrition of dairy cows, optimizing housing conditions, welfare and health care in order to improve the sustainability of milk production, as well as optimizing milking and handling the milk after milking.