| Sumario: | Milk production from smallholder farms has gained
inpo.us through various governmental policies. The
-rost important measures that have been undertaken are
the price incentives measures and creation of milk
clera- w through school milk prograrrrfe. Cn the other
hand, dairy products have become the nest inportant
livestock commodities, both in terms of farm, income
earnings end farm, family nutrition requirements.
Mllk a3 a ma-i°r commodity has been experiencing
seasonal fluctuations and insufficient supply.
Weather basically contributes largely to the problem,
but it is necessary to be able to quantify factors
within the logical manipulation of the farmer inorder
to be able to plan effectively.
Data row small scale farms was subjected to
production function and economic analyses to determine
bottlenecks in milk production. A production model that
explains the reality of milk production from small scale
iarms was developed by comparing several known functions,
ihe functions that were examined included linear, square,
Cobb-Douglas and quadratic functions. The quadratic
function was selected as the best fit. The model was used
to determine the best operating conditions, points cf
rL yield maxima per cow, and to determine attributes of
milk production in smallholder farms.
The findings cf the analyses revealed that there
is a strong relationship between feeding concentrates
and milk yield, and similarly, between farm produced
by-products and milk yield. Gther attributes are the
cow’s characteristic and environmental ^actors. The
other research findings indicate that a majority oT
the farms are within the profitable range. As to the
consequences of increasing the hol'd sizes, the findings
show diseconomies of herd sizes. The findings also sh
the need for concerted effort between the biotechnicians
and the economists in farm and national planning.L96
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