The Rural Voice, 1993-01, Page 7i
Feedback
Efficiency?
or misery?
Re: Adrian Vos' November column.
Yes it is hard to argue with those
so called "efficiency figures" that
you quote between Canadian and
American dairy producers. I have
no argument with the figures but
with the interpretation of them.
Many of us in the dairy industry do
NOT translate milking more cows
per man as "efficiency figures", we
refer more to it as the "slave ratio"
or "misery ratio".
Having to milk more cows to
maintain the same standard of liv-
ing has never seemed to be a big
plus to me. Milking more cows to
increase your income or take
advantage of technological change
is great. But remember in the
United States you have to milk
more cows to hopefully make the
same standard of living as we do
here in Canada.
It can be argued that there is
some efficiency to be gained in
feeding and cleaning larger num-
bers of animals. After all efficiency
usually means you can do more
with less or an equal amount of
labour. But when it comes to dairy
cows they still require a fair amount
of individual attention. No matter
how large of milking parlour or
how many milking machines you
add, the cow still has to be prepped
and the machine put on. You really
are not that much more efficient;
you end up running even faster to
stay even. More cows means more
heat detection, more breeding prob-
lems, more calving problems, with
more calves, more health problems,
quite simply more STRESS and
thus an increased "misery ratio".
So in parting Mr. Vos I am
happy to be a Canadian dairy
farmer. I look at the 25 per cent
less efficiency rating on the part of
Canadian dairy farmers as actually
being a 25 per cent plus rating on
the "slave scale" or "misery ratio"
over our American counterparts.0
Dennis Posthumus
Tara, ON
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JANUARY 1993 3