超大型酪農経営の形成と成果に関する一考察 : 近畿における事例調査による

Abstract

Increase of the size of Japanese dairy farms has paralleled with the improvements in dairy farming technology. Especially, the developments in the machineries for milking, feeding and disposing of excrement have increased savings in labor input and contributed greatly to the increase in the size of dairy farms. However, the managerial limitation caused by the large differences in the interanimal quality has constrained this line of size increase, and the size range from 30 to 50 heads is considered to be an optimal size class for the full-time dairy farms. Thus, after reaching this size, a dairy farm tends to shift its objective from increasing its size to increasing productivity in order to increase its income, and to intensify its management. As rare exceptions to the above case, a few extra-large dairy farms (e.g. a farm with 213 heads) exist in Kinki area, in which the problem of shortage in family labor force is solved by large capital investment and managerial capability. In this paper factors affecting the formation of the extra-large dairy farm, and their managerial performances are analyzed. Regarding the factors, capital equipments and family labor force are especially taken up, and an investigation of combinations of various kinds of machines and family labor for the purpose of saving labor input is conducted. Regarding the managerial performances, cost and benefit, productivity and production cost are compared with those of large (40-50 heads) size dairy farms. From this analysis it is found that introduction of new machines with new functions and entrepreneurial behavior and capability of manager are essential factors for the formation of the extra-large dairy farms, and that its managerial performances are extremely good.