The Objectives and Priorities for the Azorean Dairy Farmers’ Decisions - The Agricultural Economics of the 21st Century - page 145

and this is defined by constrains of the systems (land, agronomic, feeding, and labor
requirements; grazing systems; risk profit; and so on).
In the Azorean dairy farm usually farms have three land pasture altitudes and the
animals are fed directly in pasture. The three altitudes allow the feeding of the
animals in the different seasons. In winter time the animals stay mainly in low
altitude, but in summer time the animals move to high altitude which has more
grassland availability. The animals are fed mainly with pasture and in some season
they are supplemented with silage and hay. The concentrated feed is the usual
management practice in dairy farms as a complement in the period of more
production. In Azores, there are two main peaks of milk, spring and autumn,
when more green food is available. In autumn it is usual to seed maize and other
temporary cultures.
The mathematical model that reflects the Azorean dairy farm, Typology I, is
given in the Appendix. The decision variables selected as belonging to the decision
making processes of dairy farms were: X 1 —direct pasture cultivation high altitude
(ha), X 2 —direct pasture cultivation medium altitude (ha), X 3 —direct pasture culti-
vation medium altitude and silage (ha), X 4 —direct pasture cultivation medium
altitude and hay (ha), X 5 —direct pasture cultivation altitude area (ha), X 6 —direct
pasture cultivation low altitude silage (ha), X 7 —direct pasture cultivation low
altitude hay (ha), X 8 —maize cultivation medium altitude (ha), X 9 —maize cultiva-
tion low altitude (ha), X 10 —annual crop winter medium altitude (ha), X 11 —annual
crop winter altitude area (ha), X 12 —annual crop winter medium altitude (ha),
X 13 —annual crop winter low altitude (ha), X 14 —concentrated feed (Kg), and
X 15 —number of dairy animals.
The model takes into account five objectives—1: profit maximization (Gross
margin—MB, € ); 2: risk minimization, by Minimization of Total Absolute Devia-

tion (MOTAD, ), developed by Hazel (1971) and presented by Romero and

Rehman ( 1989 ); 3: labor seasonality minimization (EST, hours), 4: total labor
minimization or leisure maximization (MO, hours); and 5: deviations to the goal
of total labor minimization (DMMO, hours).
The model constrains are—1 to 4: total cultivation area per altitude (high,
medium, low); 5-7: rotational and agronomic considerations (20 % of the area
was improved by maize over 5 years); 8-9: different labor requirements concerning
six periods and specific activities, and the possibility of finding work in the exterior
of farm; 10: risk profit (

€

) over 7 years; 11: operational constrain; 12-18: feed and
animal requirements of energy (UFL), protein (PDIE and PDIN), calcium (CA),
and phosphor (P), and dry matter intake (MS); 19: intensity grazing system; 20: no
negativity constrains.

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