Investigation and Development of Environment Conservative and Animal Welfaristic Dairy Farming System

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Low input, sustainability, environment conservation, and animal welfare are gradually acknowledged as keywords for future animal husbandry system. We discussed future dairy farming bibliographically and empirically. Bibliographical research revealed that mountaneous area being dominated by animal husbandry was handicapped of various aspects, in which even agriculture had disadvantage not only internationally but also domestically. It is necessary to establish advantageous rural industry. It must be a multi-propose industry having various functions such as conservation of environment and landscape, education, amenity, and preservation of local culture, local historic events and places.Two dairy farms were investigated, where grazing lands were sustained with no fertilisers and cows were not fed concentrates. A cow produced about 4,000kg /year and its welfare level was improved drastically. Pollution from the farms decreased to 1/2-1/3 of conventional farms in Germany and 1/12-1/16 of co … More nventional farms in Japan. Grass production in grazing lands allocating 0.8 ha/cow was suppressed drastically, which was responsible for only 18% of nutrient input of cows. Plan species were biassed to short types and numbers of plant species increased. However, diversity index with quantitative scales decreased. In addition, numbers of bacteria in grazing lands decreased and a diversity level on micro flora and soil animals did not represent wilderness. Severe low input system of dairy farming suppressed a diversity level of plant species, micro flora and soil animals, suppressed grass productivity, caused cows to graze for a long time. It is suggested of imbalance between low input and productivity, conservation of environment and landscape, animal welfare. Then, we investigated a moderate input system where cows were fed concentrates of 1.1t/head/year and produced about 6,000kg/year. Coverage of weeds in grazing lands was a few percentages and micro flora and soil animals were rich, which represented wilderness. Less