Netherlands: Good roughage remains basic for low feed costs

Market manager Food & Agri Hans de Bie of Alfa Accountants and Adviseurs is also aware that entrepreneurs are concerned with feed efficiency on a daily basis. 'What you can quickly control is the composition of the total ration based on signals from milk production and the health of the livestock,' he says. 'Of course, external factors such as weather influences also play a role in the quality of roughage, but good feed efficiency starts with good roughage. There are farmers who always succeed in making a good grass silage and others rarely succeed. ' Purchase of feed and own feed Alfa has an overview of the total feed costs of dairy farmers. From July 2019 to June 2020, the costs for the purchase of feed were 10.45 euros per 100 kilos of milk, 5 cents higher than the 10.40 euros in the previous year. The costs for own feed were, at 4.79 euros per 100 kilos of milk, lower than the 6.05 euros from July 2018 to June 2019, according to Alfa Figures that Speak. 'If you look at the 25 ...