Farms in Austria – a description

By Roswitha Weissensteiner & Werner Zollitsch,  University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

Austria´s farms for SOLID: For the rapid assessment in WP1, farms were identified for the case study. They should represent traditional alpine dairy production, which can be characterised as low input, with organic dairy production playing a major role.

In Austria dairy production is one of the most important agricultural activities, as more than 50 % of the agricul-turally used land is permanent grassland. This is mainly located in mountainous areas from the west to the centre of Austria, alongside the ridge of the Alps. 70 % of all Austrian dairy farms are located in these disadvantaged areas and produce about 2/3 of the milk with herds of on average between 10 and 15 cows.
The predominant alpine dairy production system can be characterised as low input, with organic dairy production playing a major role. In these production systems, feeding during summer time is based on the utilization of perma-nent grassland, which is cut 2 or 3 times and conserved as hay or silage. During the winter time cows are typically kept in barns for 5 to 6 months. The input of concentrates is relatively low. In general little (conventional) or no mi-neral N fertilizers (organic) are used, manure is the main source for fertilizing grassland.

The organic dairy cooperative “Sennerei Hatzenstädt”
For the rapid assessment in WP1, farms were identified for the case study, which should represent traditional al-pine dairy production. Therefore members of the organic dairy cooperative “Sennerei Hatzenstädt” (Table) were chosen to participate in the rapid assessment.
The cooperative is situated in Tyrol, an alpine province in the West of Austria. It has about 40 members, which deliver their milk to the cooperative dairy plant where it is processed to hard cheese and other dairy products.

Farmers visited and interviewed
Last winter 12 farmers and their families were visited and interviewed. The farms are relatively homogenous in their structures; they are small in size, they are managed as typical low input systems with relatively low lactation milk yield, but also with an absolutely low use of concentra-tes (Table). They are managed by the farmer’s family, which typically consists of members of three generations; no further staff is employed. The on-site conditions are characterised by steep slopes, a relatively short growing season and an annual precipitation of 1200 to 1800 mm. Only permanent grassland, but no arable land is farmed. All farmers also own forest land, and earnings from sel-ling timber is important for the total farm-income. All farms have several economic cornerstones: The main source of income is the dairy production, in addition to incomes from forest, direct marketing of meat, agro-tourism and other non-farm incomes.
In a workshop with farmers, the results of the rapid as-sessment were presented and potential issues for further research were identified and discussed. In a meeting scheduled for autumn 2012 one research topic will be finally defined which will be followed up in 2013.

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