First investigation on economic sustainability of dairy cattle breeding in Apulia

Abstract

Traditionally the dairy cattle breeding in Apulia is mostly concentrated in the “Murgia barese-tarantina”. The most represented breeds in the Apulian dairy cattle population are Italian Brown (IB) and Italian Friesian (IF). The figures plotted in Fig. 1 show the general upward trend of the two breeds recorded for the period 1965–2001 in Taranto's province, representing more than 50% of the above husbandry area. Even though during the last ten years the IB upward slope have stopped with an almost steady-state, the total number of cows in the herds now stands at 17213. Notwithstanding milk quotas regime since 1984.........

Keywords

• Apulia, milk, quotas, regime, genotype