We should protect the family farm

Inefficiencyof scale in the farming sector is being ignored to the determent of farming.

Scale doesn’t work in farming because of the high costs because of the man hours it takes to manage animal health and milk quality in such a scenario. One person can manage around 80 to 100 cows and this is very much dependent on the farmer’s age and he must put in on average 60 to 80 hours a week to cope with such numbers with the work involved.

Scaling up such an enterprise to 800 cows would become uneconomic because of the labour costs because an employee will work only 40 hours — combine that with the high cost of borrowings.