摘要
Cessation of grazing is an increasing threat to the biodiversity rich semi-natural pastures in Sweden due to a decreased number of grazing livestock despite environmental payments for management of these pastures. The aim of this study is to compare the profitability of raising beef breed calves as intact bulls kept indoors after weaning and slaughtered at 15 months to raising them as steers grazing semi-natural pastures and slaughtered at 20, 25 or 30 months of age. The 20 and 25 month steers graze one summer and the 30 month steers two summers post-weaning. Profitability is calculated as gross margin to cover fixed costs of the farm and background data is obtained from an animal experiment and official Swedish standard budgets. The comparisons include alternatives with holdings situated in one out of two districts (plain or forest) and with one out of six types of semi-natural pasture (low- or high-yielding pasture, pasture with payment on a base level only or with extra payment for special values, 100% semi-natural pasture or 50% semi-natural pasture with 50% complementary ley pasture). The result suggests that the 30 month steer is the most profitable production system in most of the studied alternatives provided that the present environmental payments, single farm payment and support for less favoured areas are maintained. Bulls are more profitable than 30 month steers only if the semi-natural pasture is both high-yielding and entitled payment on a base level only. The 20 and 25 month steers have no economical competitiveness in any of the alternatives studied. Steers with two post-weaning grazing seasons seem to be a cost-efficient way to preserve the grazing dependent biodiversity in Sweden and other parts of Europe with increasing shortage of calves.
摘要译文
放牧是一个日益严重的威胁在瑞典的生物多样性丰富的半天然牧场因放牧牲畜，尽管环境支付这些牧场管理的数量减少。是提高肉牛养殖牛犊的盈利能力完好多头保持断奶后室内和15个月时宰杀去提高他们作为公牛放牧半天然牧场和屠宰20，25或30个月的年龄。在20和25个月公牛放牧一个夏天和30个月操纵两个夏天断奶后。盈利能力计算毛利率覆盖农场和后台数据从动物实验和瑞典官方标准预算获得固定的费用。攀比包括与控股替代品位于一出的两个区（平原或林）和六分之一的类型的半天然牧场（高或低收益的牧场，牧场付款只或额外支付特殊值，100％的半天然牧场或50％的半天然牧场，50％互补莱伊牧场）基础水平。结果表明，30个月转向是最有利的生产系统中的大多数提供的是，本环境付款所研究的替代品，单个服务器场支付和少青睐的地区支持维持。多头比30个月公牛只有半天然牧场既是高产题为付款只有基础水平更有利可图。在20和25个月公牛有任何研究替代品没有经济竞争力。公牛有两个断奶后放牧季节似乎是一个具有成本效益的方式来保存在瑞典和欧洲其他地区的放牧依赖生物多样性随小牛短缺。
Anna Hessle; Karl-Ivar Kumm. Use of beef steers for profitable management of biologically valuable semi-natural pastures in Sweden[J]. Journal for Nature Conservation, 2011,19(3): 131–136