Dairy milk production in the North of Vietnam : a case study in Moc Chau

Dairy milk production in Moc Chau contributes to improve the welfare of farm households. It generates daily income for farmers, provides a highly nutritious food for people, create employment opportunities for the society. Although it brings a rather high income for farmers, their lives are very hard, and their living standard is quite low.This studyaims to apply a monitoring system in farms to assist farmers improving their performance. Six field trips were carried out to help dairy farmersto monitor their farmsand collect economic and technical data in 2010-2012 in Moc Chau.The main findings are: stocking rate, milk yield and income were rather high but varied largely from this farm to others.Cost control in farm was not good thus dairy margin was not high. Purchased feed cost was too high.Homegrown feed accounted for a small part of cost but produced large amount of milk while purchased feed dominated a very large proportion of cost but produced less milk quantity.Most of the farmers followed the objective of increasing milk production but did not pay attention to the quality of herd and milk; did not make an optimal decision.Experience, land area, and herd size were the major factors that increased economic performance in farms.